TACLOBAN CITY – The contingent from San Jose National High School (SJNHS) bagged the top prize for this year’s Sangyaw Festival Parade of Lights held on June 29.
The festival is among the cultural highlights of the annual fiesta of the city in honor of its patron, Senior Santo Nino.
SJNHS bested 11 other contingents which joined the festival which included the delegates from different schools, and the municipalities of Basey, Samar; and Caibiran, Biliran.
It won P500,000 cash prize and special awards on best in costume with P10,000 cash prize, and best in street dancing winning an additional P20,000.
The second place went to the Tacloban Angelicum Learning Center contingent winning P300,000 and an additional P10,000 for the best in musicality special award while the contingent from Caibiran town bagged third place and won P200,000.
The contingents of this year’s Sangyaw Festival Parade of Lights interpreted the historical narrative behind the main image of Señor Sto. Niño de Tacloban called ‘El Capitan’ that was lost at the sea after the ship carrying it caught on fire off the coast of Mindoro and Romblon in 1888 and its eventual return to Tacloban on June 30, 1889.
Guidelines for the interpretation were created by the Leyte-Samar Heritage Society, Inc., while the nine-member judges included two officials from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
Other winners of this year’s Sangyaw Festival were the D’ Naturals as grand champion for the merrymakers category, followed by Tingog Fitness Club in second place, and Sheridan Marketing Incorporated in third place.
This year’s Sangyaw Festival Parade of Lights, witnessed by tens of thousands of both locals and visitors, is expected to boost Tacloban’s tourism industry as it recover from the negative impacts due to the pandemic caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
