MANTAWI FESTIVAL – a rediscovery of the city’s rich cultural heritage

MANTAWI FESTIVAL
The Festival

On the last Sunday of August, people of Mandaue City, Cebu celebrates the annual Mantawi Festival. Said to be a rediscovery of the city’s rich cultural heritage, it acknowledges the city’s past that contributed to its present urbanized social standing through its drydocking facility and being a new tourism destination where arts and culture play a good role to the city’s economic growth. Mandaue City boasts its commercial and industrial establishments of about 10,000 that continue to progress each year.

Mantawi Festival features a historical parade consisting of street dancing and diorama floats reliving Mandaue’s history. Neighboring cities and municipalities of teachers, students, employees, and other officials participate together in performing a presentation depicting the discovery of Mandaue in 1521. The dancers utilize native delicacies, with the common means of living of Mandaue, broom and salt making  to dance movements while known corporations and establishments contributes to the floats partaking in the event.

Also a highlight of the festival is the parade of higantes, representing the superior Spaniards who gave ample influence that shaped the Mandaue today. Culminating the event is the awarding of winners of the street dancing and the competition of floats, and the much-awaited display of fireworks.

Through the music made by brass instruments and dance interpretations, the annual festivity is relived and vividly expressed the history and heritage of Mandaue. What makes the Mantawi Festival different from any other festivals is that it focuses on culture as it showcase Mandaue as a thriving hub of trading.

Origin

Legend speaks of a clinging vine known to the people as mantawi which is abundant in the coastal areas that is believed to where Mandaue is named after and discovered by the Spanish conquistadores on April 7, 1521.

Barangay Tipolo, formerly known as Cove of Cebu, was the location of the first drydocking facility, and served the Spanish Galleon Ships, after Magellan settled in Mandaue, once called Mandawe, as his route to his destination, the Island of Sugbo in search for food and supplies, on his way back to Spain. This settlement founded on April 7th, 1521 and plays a significant value to the history of Cebu. In commemoration of the significance of the city’s foundation, people came up with a conceptualization of a festival which was later known as Mantawi Festival.

As a symbol of the city’s growth, Mantawi Festival is celebrated in tribute to the mantawi vine. It binds the people of Mandaue and links the city to the rest of the world. Therefore, the celebration of Mantawi Festival is a celebration of linking and working as one, and the strength in unity as the character of an intertwined vine.

Mantawi is celebrated because it links the past to the present and the future, and gives the people of Mandaue their own identity, rediscovering Mandaue’s cultural heritage.

History

The celebration of Mantawi Festival was changed to the last Sunday of August celebrating with the charter day of Mandaue City. It was a project of the former Mayor of Mandaue City and first celebrated on the celebration of the  33rd charter day of Mandaue, in August 30, 2002. The festival had to stop in 2004 because of organizational difficulty but continued the next year coinciding the celebration of the city fiesta.

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