Operation STOM: Moonraker Dinagyang Field Report

Written by Helen Sneha and Esther Ho

Photographs by Melissa Chia

*Names in this article have been changed to protect their identities.

     During days eight and nine of the In Search of Iloilo City study trip, the six-person Team Moonraker was assigned to the Capitol area of town. Having arrived there and discovered that good seats were hard to come by, we decided that it would be more productive to split into two separate groups. While Team Moon obtained a birds-eye view of the proceedings for a while (see ‘We Storm the Capitol’), Team Raker remained on the ground to sift through the crowds and speak to people. The following are some of the people we spoke to, and what they had to say about this year’s Dinagyang, its crowds, and its performances.

     One of the people we spoke to was Romeo Jimener, a seat-seller. He has been annually involved in the festival for the past 9 years. Romeo was born in Iloilo, so he has always been a part of the Dinagyang Festival. He used to sell seats across all 5 judging areas, but since last year he has only been allowed to set up in the Capitol. Romeo said that there are more people attending the festivities on Sundays, and that he often sees lots of foreigners attend the Dinagyang Festival in groups. He mentioned Koreans, Canadians and others, stating that the festival attracts a large variety of foreigners.

Romeo Jimener, who sold us a few seats when we first arrived at Capitol. 

     Once our student guide had helped get us decent seats on the ground near the performance area, we continued speaking to the people around us. We encountered many people of a similar age to us, including Daylene, a 21-year-old Iloilo local who works as a Korean tutor. She said that she had attended the festival every year for the last 15 years, but she felt that crowds were down this year from what they used to be previously. She especially enjoyed watching the Panayanon tribe (whom we had been watching closely over the course of the trip) perform this year. When we stopped at a nearby air-conditioned mall for a short breather and to cool off, we met Marjan Magahum and her friends, who asked to take pictures with us. Marjan and her friends Alyssa and Lory are university students, and they have attended the Dinagyang festival for two years now. They love taking pictures with tourists, but, like Daylene, feel that there are less this year than usual. Sometimes the crowds make them concerned about crimes occurring, but none have happened to them, and watching the festival live is still much better than watching it on television.

     Back in our seating area, we continued to speak to people in between performances. We spoke to a staff member of the Iloilo provincial government, Mr Eduard Enrique. He has been attending Dinagyang for more than 8 years. Eduard thought that this year’s Ati-ati dancing was better than last year’s, this year being far more creative than the last. His favorite part of Dinagyang is watching the choreography of each tribe’s unique dance. Eduard mentioned that all profits from the festival go back to the government and are usually utilized to pay back expenses like city-wide promotional banners for the festival. He had received his entrance ticket from his office. 

     We also managed to speak to some members of the local and international media. One of them was Alan Fabricante, a photographer for Travel Life magazine. He is from Subic, so this is only his second year attending the Dinagyang Festival. He specializes in taking photographs of the Ati-ati tribal dances, and his photos were featured in the magazine last year. His favorite thing about the Dinagyang festival is the colorful costumes. We happened to be sitting next to a group of people with familiar-accented English, and upon speaking to them we learned that they were a group of five people from Singapore. They were in Iloilo for only three days, specifically to coordinate coverage of the Dinagyang festival for a media outlet back home. As it was their first time attending, they were very impressed by the scale of the performances and said that they found them very culturally rich. The Panayanon tribe was their favorite too, but they really enjoyed many of the other performances as well. 

One of the many colorful and culturally rich dance performances. 

     As rewarding and interesting as it was to interview people from all walks of life in the audience, the sun became unbearably hot just as the dances ended, and we had to call it a day. Team Moonraker headed back to base with our minds swimming with new faces, conversations, and experiences.


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Helen is a third-year Bachelor of Arts student, double-majoring in Writing and International Studies. She is hopelessly interested in tennis, funky rings, dinosaurs, and the human hand.

Esther is a newly-grad who uses her life as a social experiment: Just how far can a romantic life view take a person? Will the sight of 'Gender Studies' on her resume scare off employers? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? It's all terribly perplexing...