Drag in Sinulog: How queer voices found space in the Philippines’ largest Catholic festival

CEBU, Philippines – Not many think of a wedding dress when picturing a Sinulog attire, but it’s what Jap Sabtal, who goes by his drag name Maria Lava, shows up with in Dragdagulan Na Sa Sinulog.

It’s a drag event that is ambitious in both intent (all proceeds will go to animal welfare) and execution. Many of the queens who showed up in the evening of January 10, a day after the official opening of Sinulog 2026, wore elaborate gowns and sculpted bodysuits to impersonate artists like Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, and Doja Cat.

Lava, who represented Mandaue City, Cebu, in the second season of reality competition show Drag Den, performed a soul-baring rendition of Beyoncé’s “Best Thing I Never Had,” a song that likely wouldn’t come up in any Sinulog playlist.

What is at the top of the playlist usually is the Cebuano anthem “I Love Cebu,” which Pia Labra, who goes by Piayuuuh in drag, performed with a patadyong wrapped around her waist and a salakot on her head. 

“It’s my first time doing a dance number,” she said, catching her breath after her set. Being Sinulog, she couldn’t resist dancing. 

The largest Catholic festival in the Philippines has always been about movement, a celebration of devotion expressed through dance and pageantry. Queer voices help make this celebration as vibrant and exuberant as it is, even as they navigate a centuries-old religious tradition that has yet to officially accept them. 

From the glamorous parade floats to the ornately adorned Santo Niño statues, from bedazzled gowns in pageants to intricate choreography in ritual showdowns, members of the LGBTQ+ community have a fingerprint in every facet of the festival.

“For one week [during Sinulog], the usual restrictions we often get feel loosened,” Pia professed. “Opportunities for queer spaces…become the center of gravity for the city’s nightlife.”

This year, for the first time, gender-nonconforming dancers are permitted to wear women’s costumes in the Sinulog Grand Parade after Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival called for a more inclusive celebration. 

Pia lived through the gendered restrictions when she was a Sinulog dancer. Year after year, she was made to don a barong for the parade when all her life she has been dressing up as a woman, winning barangay pageants glammed up in full regalia.  

That’s why queens today are grateful to perform in drag during Sinulog week, able to wear what they want and perform freely. They recently began gaining wider visibility in the festival, thanks in large part to invitations from malls.

“We were shocked because Sinulog is a religious practice, and they were accepting drag artists,” Lava said. 

He credits these mall events as stepping stones for the drag community to be accepted into the festival’s culture, giving them the confidence to eventually stage their own shows.

This year’s Dragdagulan Na Sa Sinulog is only the second installment of the Sinulog drag event, this time partnering with Angat Cebu BPO, a volunteer network inspired by the non-profit Angat Buhay and mainly made up of workers in the BPO industry. 

For Ryan Calda, president of Angat Cebu BPO, this event is a break from the hardships Cebuanos faced in the past few months with the twin disasters that capped the previous year. It was an easy decision for them to pair drag and Sinulog. 

“Sinulog is a celebration of art, music, dance, and fashion…What’s a better way to celebrate it than through drag shows — which is a celebration of art, music, dance, and fashion?” he mused. 

Calda and the team made a conscious decision to respect the religious aspects of Sinulog while also celebrating artistic freedom and expression during the show. Religious artifacts were not used in promoting the event, in the stage design, or in the performances. What made the event Sinulog was the infectious energy the performers brought to the stage.

“We are careful and respectful to the devotion of the faithful,” Calda said. “At the same time, we’d like to celebrate with them.”

While it is monumental that gender-nonconforming individuals are now allowed to cross-dress in the parade, the change remains temporary and applies only for this year.

Pia says this is “only step one out of 101 million.” 

While Cebu has ordinances protecting individuals from violence and discrimination based on SOGIE (whereas the SOGIE Equality Bill has been stuck in Congress for two decades), there is still much work to be done. Persistent stigma around queer people and HIV and the lack of financial sustainability for drag performers continue to pose challenges.

Even a controversial incident like drag queen Pura Luka Vega’s religious-themed performance, which led to the artist being declared persona non grata in at least 11 localities including Cebu, shows how fraught the boundaries between queer expression and religious norms remain.

The devotion to the Santo Niño has evolved over the past five centuries, waxing and waning in its extravagance, shaping and reshaping folklore, and losing and regaining its cultural significance. Drag artists and queer voices in general aren’t looking to revolutionize this any further. What they want is simply to be welcomed into the devotion and celebration.

“We aren’t replacing tradition; we are expanding it,” Calda clarified. “We are expanding its heart.” — Rappler.com