In this Side Trip, Carmina and Patch are awe-struck by Cebu's beauty and history. Listen in as they talk about the spectacular festivals and mouth-watering delicacies. They also discuss the trials and achievements of Cebu's very own, Chai Fonacier. Salamat Kaayo, Cebu!
To learn more: The Story of Lapu-Lapu: The Legendary Filipino Hero, It’s More Fun in The Philippines: The Sinulog Festival Fever, A brief history of the yummy Cebu lechon, 11 Reasons Why Cebu Lechon is the Best Pig in the World, IMDb: Chai Fonacier, and 3 Cebuano Artists You Should Stan.
Click here for the Official Trailer of PINAY BEAUTY (She’s No White).
Check out Nocebo’s Official Trailer here.
Here are just some of the conservation efforts benefitting Cebu: Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, Soil and Water Conservation Foundation, Inc., Energy Efficiency and Conservation Information Campaign: #EnerhiyangAtin.
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
In this Side Trip, Carmina and Patch are awe-struck by Cebu's beauty and history. Listen in as they talk about the spectacular festivals and mouth-watering delicacies. They also discuss the trials and achievements of Cebu's very own, Chai Fonacier. Salamat Kaayo, Cebu!
To learn more: The Story of Lapu-Lapu: The Legendary Filipino Hero, It’s More Fun in The Philippines: The Sinulog Festival Fever, A brief history of the yummy Cebu lechon, 11 Reasons Why Cebu Lechon is the Best Pig in the World, IMDb: Chai Fonacier, and 3 Cebuano Artists You Should Stan.
Click here for the Official Trailer of PINAY BEAUTY (She’s No White).
Check out Nocebo’s Official Trailer here.
Here are just some of the conservation efforts benefitting Cebu: Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, Soil and Water Conservation Foundation, Inc., Energy Efficiency and Conservation Information Campaign: #EnerhiyangAtin.
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
Welcome to FilTrip, a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines. And now a quick shout out. Check out Manila Candle. Manila Candle features Filipino inspired scents like Tagaytay, Palawan, Ube Halaya and Buco and Mango. They also have fun ones like Ay Nako and Bahala Ka Sa Buhay Mo.
Patch:Enjoy their car fresheners, wax melts and merchandise to visit manilacandle.com and take a trip to the Philippines through their scents.
Carmina:Back to our show.
Patch:Today's trip is a side trip and that's when we take a short detour to a specific place and discuss it in a bit more depth.
Carmina:So Patch, today we're visiting Cebu.
Patch:Nice.
Carmina:It's really not our first trip to Cebu though, right?
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:Because we discussed it in episode 16 of season one when we talked about the legend of Lapu Lapu and the Battle of Mactan in our Independence Day episode.
Patch:I learned a few new things about Lapu Lapu.
Carmina:Patch. Have you ever been to Cebu?
Patch:No.
Carmina:I'm always hearing about how beautiful it is.
Patch:Very historic, and also there's a lot of wonderful festivals there.
Carmina:The first place I think about when we talk about the Visayan region in the Philippines is Cebu. So for those of our listeners who don't know, Visayas is the major island grouping in the center of the Philippines. And it consists of seven large islands and patch several hundred smaller islands.
Patch:That's a lot of islands.
Carmina:But you know, several hundred out of 7,100, I guess.<laugh>
Patch:Are you making me do math?
Carmina:<laughs>
Patch:I thought we said we were not gonna do that.
Carmina:Yeah, well if I really wanted to, uh, torture you, I'd ask you what percentage that is.<laugh>, but I won't.
Patch:Thank you.
Carmina:So the largest of those seven large islands is Cebu, which is in the center of that grouping. Cebu is technically a province, an island, a metropolitan area, and a city.
Patch:I'm not sure what the difference is between a metropolitan area and a city. Do you<laugh>? Obviously not. It's okay. We can move on.
Carmina:Actually.
Patch:You do?
Carmina:I can surprise you.
Patch:<laugh>
Carmina:So I looked up what the definition is of a metropolitan area.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:Because I was anticipating this from you.< Laugh>
Patch:Oh my, what does that say?<laugh>. Okay.
Carmina:A metropolitan area refers to a place that has a core or a center that acts as the primary hub with communities around it that are economically and socially integrated with that core. An example of this is New York City because New York City is the core city, but around it are the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island and you know, one can say that they're all integrated with New York City, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So Patch, guess how many languages are in the visa? I, Languages. Okay, not dialects.
Patch:Um, a hundred.
Carmina:Well, not quite. There's 30
Patch:<laugh>
Carmina:But still that's 30 different languages. The main ones are Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray Waray. A Cebuano could refer to his or native language as either Cebuano or Visayan. But a lot of people think that that's confusing because apparently these three languages are not interchangeable in any way.
Patch:Okay. So I did wanna ask what is the major language spoken?
Carmina:Cebuano is the language spoken by the majority.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And it is adopted as the common language. And Cebuano, by the way, is also considered the second language of the Philippines. So I just wanted to cover a few historical facts, Patch.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:Cebu City is the oldest city in the Philippines, even older than Manila.
Patch:Right? I heard about that.
Carmina:As we mentioned in our Independence Day episode, there was already a thriving trading center in Cebu way before Manila, Spanish colonial period. It was a really diverse city from the beginning with all kinds of people from all over the world making it their home. And if you remember right, Lapu Lapu himself was an immigrant from Borneo.
Patch:Yes. Which was one of the surprising facts I learned from that episode.
Carmina:It became a military outpost of the Spanish, and it was where Christianity was first introduced in Asia. During World War II. The Japanese occupied it for three years, and it was the landing site of the American forces when they returned deliberate the Philippines.
Patch:Do you know why it's called Cebu?
Carmina:In fact, I do<laugh>. So Cebu was derived from Zubu or Sugbu because when the Spaniards arrived, they refer to the people there as Sugbuanon the meaning of this as people who walk on water,
Patch:Walking on water.
Carmina:Yeah, that's what I thought too when I first heard it. But there is a reason because the ports in Cebu were so shallow that people had to anchor their boats in deeper waters because I guess the boats would get damaged if they went into shallow waters and then they had to walk to the shore.
Patch:I came across a different origin, so I don't, I guess there's a controversy between, or not a controversy, but there's like a discussion on what the origin of the name itself is from.
Carmina:From like everything else Precolonial.<laugh>
Patch:Right? So apparently there's this folk epic called Aginid, Bayok sa Atong Tawarik.
Carmina:Nice!
Patch:Right? Which don't ask me to translate it because I don't know what it means, but it describes a, I guess a Raja.
Carmina:mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Patch:Sri Rajahmura Lumay. He's a prince from S umatra who established a kingdom in the area. And during his r eign, he would fight off pirates and unwanted visitors from Mindanao and surrounding areas by setting fire or scorching everything i n sight. And eventually his kingdom would be called Kang Sri Lumaying Sugbu or simply Sugbu. So I guess Sugbo means scorched or something. And then there's the other origin story that the w ord Cebu, it means trade short for sinibuayng hingpit or the place for trading.
Carmina:Are we gonna have a battle about this?
Patch:<laugh>
Carmina:I say no because as we know, right, these could all be true or none of it could be true. But<laugh>,
Patch:Right?
Carmina:They all sound good to me.< laugh>
Patch:So regardless, it is called Cebu now.
Carmina:And it's really synonymous with beauty and tranquility and great sites and historical.
Patch:And really Carmina, I mean you should already expect this from me, but also it's known for its delicacies, Right?
Carmina:Right. We'll talk about that a little later b ecause that's one of the most exciting parts about this< laugh>. So just to round up the history. Magellan arrived in Cebu in 1521 and as we know, killed by Lapu Lapu.
Patch:Right
Carmina:In 1542, Ruy Lopez Devillalobos landed in Mindanao and claimed the islands for Spain, naming them Islas Filipinas. Then in 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi began the colonization process from Cebu and made it the capital of the Philippines until he moved it to Manila in 1571. So since neither of us have been to Cebu,Patch.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And that is a real crying shame.
Patch:It is. And I'm kind of embarrassed, like, to be honest.
Carmina:Me too. Because there's so many YouTube videos by foreigners who have visited Cebu and have really documented their visits and it just is so beautiful.
Patch:I'm just very jealous.
Carmina:One of the things that really, uh, sucked me in when I was looking through YouTube videos is their festivals.
Patch:I'm very curious about one of them, which is the, one of the major ones Sinulog Festival.
Carmina:Yeah. So that's a nine day festival apparently. And it ends on the third Sunday of January and it honors the holy image of Santo Nino representing the conversion of the Cebuanosto Roman Catholicism.
Patch:Basically the festival is done by doing dances, right? Dance rituals.
Carmina:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Patch:That's a lot of days of dancing. I mean that's great cardio work.
Carmina:<laugh>. Well, I agree. And the reason why the Santo Nino is kind of the star of this event is in commemoration of Queen Humamay, the wife of Raja Humabon. And if you recall, Raja Humabon was the first ruler that Magellan met with. There's very few documented references to Queen Humamay. Antonio Pigafetta who was the Venetian scholar who accompanied Magellan on his voyage to the Philippines, wrote about her as a young and beautiful queen with lips and nails painted i n red. She was also described as wearing a salakot, or in Cebuano it's called Sarok. Pigafetta's last mention of her was when she attended m ass wearing black and white clothes with a scarf of w oven fabric that is called the hablon i n Cebu. So the reason that this is such a significant part of the history is because when she saw the Santo Nino, she apparently asked for it and that's why it was given to her. She was c hristened a s Queen Juana.
Patch:She's queen in many ways.<laugh>. So Queen Juana of Castile is what I found.
Carmina:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Patch:After King Phillip's grandmother.
Carmina:So remember I said earlier that this festival last nine days?
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:You said that there's a lot of dancing for nine days.<laugh>,
Patch:I'm tired just listening to it.
Carmina:Aside from the dancing.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:I found some additional details about what happens on the eighth and the ninth day.
Patch:Does it involve physical movement<laugh> or does it involve any eating at this point? Carmina throw me a bone.
Carmina:On the eighth day is when they have a little rest from the dancing<laugh>.
Patch:Yes.
Carmina:So on the eighth day there is a water parade called the Fluvial procession, which involves carrying the Santo Nino on a flower adorned pump boat from Mandaue City wharf to the Cebu city wharf. The procession stops at the Basilica Menore del Santo Nino. It's one of the top tourist destinations because it said to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest church in the Philippines. And very close to it is Magellan's cross. Magellan, when he arrived in S abu planted a c ross and this cross is preserved i n the exact same spot of the original.
Patch:What's standing in there is not the original.
Carmina:It is.
Patch:Oh,
Carmina:The original cross is encased in tindalo wood. And they did that because people believed it had miraculous powers and so they kept taking pieces of it. And that's why at one point the Catholic church decided to encase it.
Patch:Imagine if you were one of those first few peoples that were able to take a piece of it,<laugh>.
Carmina:Right, right. I wanna find those people<laugh>.
Patch:Exactly.
Carmina:And right now, if you look at YouTube videos, the Magellan Cross is protected on all sides.
Patch:That's a good call<laugh>.
Carmina:Exactly. Or else nothing would've been left of that cross. Right?
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:That's the eighth day. It's the Fluvial procession. And I didn't read anything involving dancing. So I guess people take a rest of that day. And then there are two important events that occur on the ninth and last day. The Hubo mass and the grand parade.
Patch:What does Hubo mass entail?
Carmina:I mean your Tagalog, but I guess it means the same thing in Bisaya, right?
Patch:Really? I was thinking maybe it doesn't mean the same thing<laugh>. So now I'm even more curious<laugh>,
Carmina:For our listeners who don't know, hubo means undress.
Patch:Naked.
Carmina:So remember I mentioned Pigafetta earlier, right?
Patch:Why I suddenly have an image of him naked? Why would you transition to that?
Carmina:Well because in his last account of Queen Humamay, he described her as having been accompanied by a great number of barefoot and naked women.
Patch:I see. Okay. Okay.
Carmina:Except for a small covering of palm tree cloth on their private parts. But apparently the hubo mess, it has nothing to do with this hubo women. Sorry for the uh, detour. I just had to mention that since we were talking about hubo.
Patch:<laugh>, This is not confusing at all.
Carmina:I mean it is a side trip after all. So<laugh>, in any case, the Hubo mass does not mean that the mass goers are undressed. Not at all. The ritual has to do when the priests ceremonially remove the festival garments of the Santo Nino.
Patch:Oh, okay.
Carmina:So they make the Santo naked and then they bath it in water laced with perfume.
Patch:Mm-hmm<affirmative>.
Carmina:And then they dry it and then they put the ordinary clothes on it to signal that the festival has ended.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:That's why it's called the Hubo mass.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:So you and our listeners should get their minds out of the gutter
Patch:<laugh>.
Carmina:Okay. Although I did take us there first. So
Patch:<laugh>,
Carmina:I guess it's my bad. And then the grand finale is the grand parade, and that is where people have the most fun and where the Sinulog really comes to life.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:The word Sinulog means graceful dance. The word slog means water currents. And if you watch the dance, the forward and backward bodily movement of the dancers kind of mimics the flow of the water current in time with drum beats. So there are giant floats and in all the YouTube videos that I watched, there's a woman holding the Santo Nino in the middle of all of these dancers who I guess represent Queen Juana.
Patch:And it's amazing how colorful the costumes that they wear doing the festival. It's one of the more colorful ones I've seen.
Carmina:And even the people who attend these festivals, they come in headdresses really colorful clothes, really colorful makeup. They really join in.
Patch:Very exciting.
Carmina:There's one more festival Patch that I found very fascinating. It's called Kadaugan Sa Mactan.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:I'm sorry to tell you that. It's a week long commemoration.
Patch:<laugh>
Carmina:Of the Battle of Mactan. There are a lot of musical productions and the finale, as one can expect, is the reenactment of the Battle of Mactan that involves Lapu Lapu and Magellan.
Patch:Mm-hmm<affirmative>.
Carmina:And this year they celebrated its 501st anniversary.
Patch:Wow.
Carmina:The performance includes a river procession of Magellan's three ships.
Patch:Life size?
Carmina:Well the article that I read said it's reimagined as the Banca<laugh>.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:Which is a traditional fishing boat. But can you imagine how expensive it would be to have actual battleships then? It's followed by a reenactment of the planting of Magellan Cross and Lapu Lapu's victory over the Spanish invaders. Patch every year. Of course t he story remains the same.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:But the presentation at the shrine varies every year.
Patch:How can they vary it?
Carmina:Why do you ask hard questions?
Patch:Oh, I thought, Okay, scratch that. So I do wanna say though that it would be really interesting if they varied a little bit of it. B ecause if it's the same thing every year, then I would expect some people might not look forward to it as much.
Carmina:I just wanna tell our listeners, there's still tons more festivals in Cebu.
Patch:R ight.
Carmina:But the one that I wanna talk about last is the Kabkaban Festival. It's a relatively new festival that happens on the fourth week of November in Carcar City.
Patch:What I came across about the Kabkaban festival, it's a ritual dance. It's set a drive away evil spirits.
Carmina:It's celebrated an honor of the town's patron, Saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria. And it was inspired by a person named Val San Diego, who is a very vocal champion of Cebuano heritage conservation
Patch:Carmina, I also learned that the Kabkaban festival is named after the kind of grass that is abundant in the area called kabkab.
Carmina:And it was used as an instrument to drive away bad luck and bad spirits. And it's incorporated into the dance rituals. So the highlights of the parade are a beauty pageant, a street dancing competition.
Patch:Mm-hmm<affirmative>.
Carmina:An agricultural fair and variety shows. It's also a way to showcase the city of Carcar which is known for its wooden furniture, decorations, the bolos or the traditional knives, baskets and handcrafted goods.
Patch:And also locally made shoes.
Carmina:That are apparently high quality and inexpensive. It's one of the best preserved heritage towns in the country and has churches, plazas, monuments and ancestral houses from the Spanish period and patch. It's apparently where you can get one of the best of Cebu world famous Lechon.
Patch:So that means we can segue into the food now?
Carmina:Yes. Our favorite topic,
Patch:I never really thought about it consciously, but a lot of the Filipino famous delicacies really come from Cebu.
Carmina:So Patch, have you ever wondered where the word lechon comes from? Uh, Lechon is derived from the Spanish word leche, which literally translates to milk.
Patch:Oh, right, right, right. Okay.
Carmina:And when you consider that the original lechons used to be small, young suckling pigs, that kind of makes sense. Right? And it was only when lechon became popular that the bigger pigs were lechoned.
Patch:The more to eat and share. Lechon de Cebu really is well known in the country because of its distinct flavor and it's probably attributed to the stuffing that they have. Um, mostly there's lemon grass, garlic, onions, pepper, but also the way they take the time to cook and roast the lechon.
Carmina:That makes it crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>
Carmina:And Anthony Bourdain himself declared the lechon as the best pig in the world.
Patch:<laugh>. Right. I remember. So some of the other delicacies that I came across is Balamban Liempo. They say it's tastier than lechon?
Carmina:If that's even possible.
Patch:So it's basically chunks of pork stuffed with different ingredients that make it very flavorful. It's often served with this other delicacy, which is the puso. There's rice wrapped in woven coconut leaves and it's hung and they look like little packets or little purses. And you have it as a side dish for many of the other, uh, delicacies. And it's considered one of favorite Cebuano street food.
Carmina:Yeah. And I read too that it's a way to pack rice for journeys.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And it's really ideal for that because you can eat it while you're standing.
Patch:Uh, and then there's also the danggit, which is dried fish dip in vinegar. Oh, Carmina. The dried mangoes. I mean,
Carmina:How can we not talk about the dry mangoes<laugh>? I mean, especially since it's being sold in a lot of stores here in the US now.
Patch:Yeah. I see it at Costco.
Carmina:And even some of them do say that it's specifically from Cebu.
Patch:Yeah. So these are some of the treats that are available in Cebu, but not where I am.<laugh>. So
Carmina:Sad.
Patch:Sad.
Carmina:Okay. Patch. I do want to talk about one Cebuano artist.
Patch:Okay. And who is the artist?
Carmina:So I discovered this artist Chai Fonacier. She's an actress, singer, and s ongwriter. So what's really impressive about her in the short time that u m, I've known her<laugh>, is that she's very passionate about being Visayan and being Cebuana. And in fact, I listened to her on some podcasts where she was a guest and I just find her generally impressive in her convictions and in her pride about being Cebuano.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:She was born in Northern Mindanao and then lived in Cebu for most of her life. You know, in these podcast episodes she's talked a lot about being Cebuano and how in her life she felt really marginalized, especially when she moved to Manila. Because one of the things that is also very fascinating to me, and maybe we can explore it further in a future episode, is this like simmering tension between the Tagalog and Visayans. I don't know if you've encountered that in your life Patch, but I have had some experiences where I did hear elders or heard in general there's some kind of tension or a competition between Tagalog and Visayans.
Patch:Also in media, when a character or a person has a Visayan accent, they're not always portrayed in the best light.
Carmina:That's true. And this is a lot of what Chai talks about. Her passion really shines through when she talks about these issues. If people want to check her out, there's a lot of content about her in YouTube. There's a really hilarious movie about the Filipino obsession with having fair skin. It's called Pinay Beauty. She's No White<laugh> and<laugh>. I really wanna find this movie because it just, the clips that I found about it, it's so hilarious. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And there's this storm Patch, I don't know if you've heard about it. Have you heard of the term bisdak or bisaya dako?
Patch:No.
Carmina:Bisaya dako refers to literally very Cebuano.
Patch:Mm-hmm<affirmative>.
Carmina:It has its roots in the ethnic Cebuanos who basically were very far from where the Spanish settled. And so they tended to maintain their ethnic appearance. And as we know in the Philippines in general, there's a very huge premium that's put on Mestiza beauty.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And so the standard of beauty t ends towards being fair and white skinned and tall n ose.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And Chai Fonacier, what I really find so interesting about her is that she doesn't fit that traditional mold. And most recently Patcg, she is in a film called Nocebo.
Patch:Okay. And what is the film about?
Carmina:I'm gonna read to you the IMDB summary.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:I quote,"A fashion designer is suffering from a mysterious illness that puzzles her doctors and frustrates her husband until help arrives in the form of a Filipino carer who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth."
Patch:Dun, dun, dun.
Carmina:And Patch, I watch the clips as soon as we hang up from recording this episode.
Patch:Uhhuh
Carmina:You should look it up. It is so good. So it's directed by Lorcan Finnegan, who is well known in the film industry and stars Eva Green and Mark Strong, who are very well known British actors.
Patch:Yeah. I love Eva Green.
Carmina:I love Mark Strong<laugh>.
Patch:Team Eva.
Carmina:I mean, honestly, it would be so fascinating to learn how Chai was able to be involved in such a prestigious film.
Patch:Yeah.
Carmina:And I'm really looking forward to watching the whole film. I have to say I was mesmerized by her acting.
Patch:I'm glad you came across this artist.
Carmina:I know there are other very well known artists who are also Cebuan and hopefully in a future episode we can cover them too. But as I said, Chai was just really vocal about being Cebuano and in general Visayan and making it in the Philippines and making it elsewhere. So I'm really rooting for her success.
Patch:Me too.
Carmina:And I guess the last thing that I just wanted to mention about Cebu, in spite of its beauty, there are a lot of environmental challenges facing it right now. It's experiencing a lot of climate change related disasters and also because of the rapid growth of population and tourism, unfortunately nature isn't always taken the best care of. So this year the Department of Energy in Partnership with the Presidential Communications Operations Office officially launched the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Information campaign in Cebu. And what it hopes to do is to promote a clean, efficient, robust, and sustainable energy system in the country. And Patch, there's so many more conservation efforts happening in Cebu. And what we'll do is we'll link them in our show notes for our listeners to check out in case they want to help out. Cuz it's really a shame because Cebu's beauty is really unparalleled and we really should do more to conserve it.
Patch:So Carmina, this is yet another episode that makes me very nostalgic. But in the meantime, we hope this episode starts your journey of discovery of Cebu.
Carmina:Oh siya, siya.
Patch:Ingat! Thanks for listening to FilTrip with Carmina and Patch. Support FilTrip through Patreon or PayPal, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.
Carmina:Thanks to FilTrip sponsor, Solepack, a functional shoe accessory bag. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
Patch:Email us at thefiltrip@gmail.com.