SantaCruzan 2014 (Cavite City)

Flores De Mayo is one of the highly anticipated celebrations that is being held in the month of May. It is a Catholic festival that is traditionally done in different parts of the Philippines. It is held in May in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Several church activities are being held in celebration with the said event including the daily flower offering to the image of the Virgin Mary (it may vary depending on the church’s patron). The grandest event is being held at the last day of May through the so-called SantaCruzan. It is a novena procession held in honor of Helena Constantinople (the Reyna Elena) and Constantine the Great finding the true cross of Jerusalem. Here in Cavite, we used to call the event as Sagala. Many movie and television personalities participate in the events and are featured in major sagala.This festival was introduced by the Spaniards and has since become part of Filipino traditions identified with youth, love, and romance.
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The event started with a brief performance from the Drum and Bugle corps. Unlike last Sagala 2012, the event features no celebrities and was strictly organized by the Hermanas.
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The Santacruzan was about ti begin during this time. The organizers are getting themselves busy arranging the sequence. For those who are not aware, this particular pageant parade follows a typical sequence or arrangement. Allow me to list them down in order. (descriptions were taken from Wikipedia)

1. Methuselah – bearded and bent with age, he is depicted as riding a cart and looking preoccupied with toasting grains of sand in a pan over a fire. This is a reminder that the world is transient and will end up like the dust which he is toasting.
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2. Reyna Banderada (Queen With a Banner) – a young lady dressed in a long red gown, bearing a yellow pennant. She represents the arrival of Christianity.

3. Aetas – represents the dark-skinned indigenous peoples of the Philippines such as the Aeta and Ati. These aboriginal groups predate the ancestors of today’s majority Malayo-Polynesian Filipinos by tens of thousands of years.

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4. Reyna Mora (Queen Moor) – represents Muslim Filipinos, owing to Mary’s status in Islam and mention in the 19th sura (chapter) of the Qur’an. Islam arrived in the Philippines two centuries before Christianity and today has the second most number of adherents in the country.

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