Officcial Website of Maguindanao Province

BULUAN, Maguindanao—The week-long Sagayan Festival that showcased the rich and colourful culture of the Maguindanaoans has proven its tourism potentials which could surpass the popularity of other festivities, like the Kadayawan of Davao City and Sinulog of Cebu that had attracted local and international tourists.

The National Commission on Culture and Arts has vowed to help institutionalize and promote the Sagayan Festival in the province of Maguindanao, which is said to be "one of the best tourism potential that the country has."

BULUAN, Maguindanao, Philippines – Thousands of colorfully dressed people would converge here Friday to launch the 1st Sagayan Festival, showcasing Maguindanao’s rich cultural traditions and other ecotourism potentials long dwarfed by natural and man-made disasters, including the infamous massacre of 58 persons in 2009.
Organizers have lined up various festivities for five straight days starting Friday with a parade of residents from the 36 towns of Maguindanao clad in colorful woven dresses representing their ethnicities, followed by a grand “pagana” (offering of local cuisines and delicacies) to participants and visitors, festival coordinator Raquel Magalona said.

Magalona said the festival, which pursues the observance of the current National Artists Month, will wind up on February 14, coinciding with Valentine’s Day, and birthday of the late Ginalyn Mangudadatu, wife of the incumbent provincial governor, who had been organizing festivals to help transform Maguindanao until her fateful death in the November 23, 2009, massacre.