Carcar City’s Kabkaban Festival contingent performing during the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo 2019 ritual showdown competition held Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019, at the Cebu City Sports Center. CDN Digital photo | Gerard Vincent Francisco
CEBU CITY, Philippines — This year’s Pasigarbo sa Sugbo has “surpassed all records” of the Festival of Festivals since its conception in 2008.
Victor Hao Cuenco, the lead organizer for Pasigarbo sa Sugbo 2019, said this year’s celebration is “one of the most highly level up, grand, and competitive” in terms of the number of contingents and production value.
“Out of 44 [contingents], I think 90 percent has done a fabulous production. The past Pasigarbo, the most number of contingents was 38, now we have 44. It’s quite late already, but the people are still here,” Cuenco said in an interview at past 2 a.m. on Monday, August 26.
Watch Cuenco’s interview here:
The Pasigarbo sa Sugbo 2019 program lasted for almost 13 hours. It kicked off with the street dance parade at 2 p.m. on SUnday, August 25, from M. Velez Street near the Cebu Provincial Capitol.
The 44 contingents danced their way to the Cebu City Sports Center through the 2.3-kilometer route along Osmeña Boulevard, passing by five judging stations. The fifth judging station was at the grandstand of CCSC.
The street dance performances finished at past 7 p.m. The ritual dance showdown immediately followed and lasted for over seven hours.
The winning performer, Carcar City’s Kabkaban Festival, was not able to perform until past 1 a.m.
Read: Carcar City’s Kabkaban Festival is Pasigarbo sa Sugbo 2019’s big winner
Cuenco admitted that it was unfair for the last few contingents who were at the last part of the roster because they had waited for long hours before performing.
He said the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo organizers will be devicing more schemes to finish the dance presentations earlier next time.
“Maybe in the future we can have north and south categories and then grand finals or we will start the street dancing in the morning so at 1 p.m. we can start with the ritual showdown,” Cuenco said.
But some parts of the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo did not go as planned, especially in the number of winners for the street dancing and ritual showdown categories.
Instead of choosing only one winner for the street dance category, Governor Gwendolyn Garcia asked the judges to declare the top 5 for the competition.
Read: Finesse of performers, clarity of story are keys to Carcar’s success in Pasigarbo sa Sugbo
The street dancing competition winners are Kabkaban Festival of Carcar City (1st place), Lalin Festival of Asturias (2nd place), Haladaya Festival of Daanbantayan (3rd place), Hinulawan Festival of Toledo City (4th place) and Sarok Festival of Consolacion (5th place).
Kabkaban Festival also topped the ritual showdown category, taking home their second championship since 2011.
Instead of just five winners for the ritual showdown, the judges also declared 10 winners “because of the number of good performances.”
Ranking next to Kabkaban Festival are Madridejos’ Isda Festival (2nd place), Halad Inasal Festival of Talisay City (3rd place), Alcoy’s Siloy Festival (4th place), Sarok Festival of Consolacion (5th place), La Torta Festival of Alcoy (6th place), Naga City’s Dagitab Festival (7th place), Kagasangan Festival of Moalboal (8th place) and Bonga Festival of Sibonga (9th place ) and Liloan’s Rosquillos Festival (10th place).
Liloan was the defending champion of Pasigarbo sa Sugbo ritual dance showdown.
Garcia has yet to announce the official prices for the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo winners during the awarding ceremony at the CCSC on Monday, August 26. /bmjo