Join the “Wet ‘n Wild” Regada Water Festival in Cavite

REGADA FESTIVAL

It has been a yearly tradition every June 22nd – 29th to celebrate the Cavite City Water Festival more popularly known as “Regada Festival” every June. The annual tourism oriented festival has evolved into a combined environmental, religious and cultural activity. More so, the month of June is significant in Cavite City’s history for its lasting contribution to Philippine independence and history.

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“BE PREPARED TO GET WET,” warned Cavite City’s local officials to the guests and visitors of their Annual Water Festival. A wet and wild festival awaits tourist and other visitors when they come to the historic city to celebrate the feast of St. John the Baptist.

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“Regada” was derived the spanish word “regar” from the chavacano speaking Cavitenos, which means water or to sprinkle. In a bid to hold the biggest water festival, Regada, will be staged in the one kilometer stretch along P. Burgos Avenue. The main thorougfare will be rigged with sprinklers and mobile sound system to transform P. Burgos Avenue into what could be the biggest wet party in the country.

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Students and townfolks will fill the avenue to participate in the wet street dancing dubbed as “Basayawan sa Kalye”. The participants will interpret the essence of the yearly water festival through colorful costumes and body movements and dance to the music provided by the giant mobile sound systems installed along P. Burgos Avenue.

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The festival culminates with the holding of Caracol ni San Juan Bautista at around 11 o’clock in the moring, a fitting climax to the festival’s origin in honor of St. John the Baptist in which people celebrate for the blessing by joining the “Paulan”.

Regada started in 1996 and from then on, was held every year during the month of June.

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Although the tourist-orientated Regada Water Festival is nominally dedicated to St John the Baptist (traditionally associated with the sprinkling of baptismal water), a more suitable patron might be Neptune. This unusual annual fiesta was only instigated in 1996, but has rapidly become an enduring tradition, whose fame has spread far beyond the Calabarzon Region.

The whole family comes to get wet

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Regada is an anarchic mixture of religious, environmental and cultural themes, but in truth it’s all a great excuse for a week-long knees-up that turns the city of Cavite (itself surrounded by water) into a carnival venue-a pretty wild and wet one. In the run-up to the saint’s day there are numerous entertaining events-a bike rally, water sports, music and dance competitions, concerts, cultural presentations, fashion shows, cookery demonstrations, art exhibitions and a whole variety of colourful themed parades and intriguing processions, including one by youthful eco-warriors dressed in herbage to underline the festival’s ‘green’ credentials.

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It all comes to a splashy climax on St John’s Day. In order to maintain Regada’s self-proclaimed status as the world’s largest water festival, the entire main thoroughfare of P Burgos Avenue is equipped with sprinklers and powerful sound systems. It becomes a festival centerpiece with townsfolk, students and adventurous visitors getting soaked as they indulge in the prolonged wet-dancing session. Faint-hearted visitors can watch-and be highly amused-from the safety of the sidelines.

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This extraordinary sight is complemented by a reminder of the festival’s more serious aspect-the Caracol, which sees an image of St John paraded through the city streets to reminder the many devout onlookers to give thanks for the year’s blessings. It’s the final piece of a colourful jigsaw and makes a vibrant picture that anyone visiting the Philippines in June should be sure to see.

Photo from: cavite.info