KALIBO, Aklan – Fascinating pageantry, infectious beat, a riot of colors.
These are easily the source of the magical charm of Ati-Atihan, the week-long festival that draws hordes of local and foreign vacation-seekers to Kalibo, Aklan during this capital town’s fiesta staged from Jan. 11 to 16 every year.
The Ati-Atihan, often described as the wildest among Philippine fiestas, is actually a feast in honor of the Santo Niño, celebrated in Aklan and many other localities of Western Visayas with processions, parades, street dancing, day and night merrymaking.
People are captivated by the Ati-Atihan for aside from the unique visual experience it offers, it never fails to mesmerize onlookers and turn them into a gyrating, rejoicing mob doing non-stop dancing on almost every open space of Kalibo.
The Ati-Atihan is the ultimate leveler of people. In mock celebration of an ancient peace pact forged between the Aklanon hinterland natives and ten datus from Borneo who had come to Panay at the turn of the 13th century, people from all walks of life mix it up in non-stop revelry.
Beneath profane merriment, or the raucous way of honoring Santo Niño, however, is an elaborate liturgical symbolism which consumes the native celebrants, who view the Ati-Atihan as a thanksgiving festival, their way of thanking the Almighty for good trade, bountiful harvest, deliverance from famine and storm, a prayer answered, a vow reaffirmed, or plain ecstasy for life.
The unique blending of revelry and exaltation with the solemn rituals for Sto. Niño devotees is at the core of the 2005 festival thrust of the Kalibo Ati-Atihan Management Board (KAMB) envisioned to develop the festival into a world-class event by attracting tens of thousands of local and international devotees and encouraging annual balikbayan pilgrimages to Aklan.
Kalibo Mayor Raymar A. Rebaldo, who chairs KAMB, said the Ati-Atihan, which finds no equal in the country as a cultural, historical and spiritual fiesta, is being re-packaged with a complementary focus on the attractions of Boracay as the "mother of all Philippine festivals.’’
Aklan officials led by Gov. Carlito S. Marquez, Congressman Joeben Miraflores and Mayor Rebaldo have initiated a partnership between LGUs, people’s organizations, tourism stakeholders, education and religious community, commercial and industrial sectors to achieve the goal of projecting the Ati-Atihan as world-renowned festivity.
"We have worked out other allied activities to cater to a much wider interest and come-ons for tourists and devotees such as promotions of local products, flower and decorative plant shows, food festival and cultural shows,’’ Rebaldo said.
The 57-year old Northwestern Visayan Colleges (NVC) headed by its president Atty. Allen S. Quimpo, is also spearheading the promotion of the festival as an annual destination of Aklan balikbayans.
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