Abellana Cebu City Sports Complex 2007 + Sto Nino

1. 

The Cebu City Sports Center, formerly known as the Abellana Oval, has made a lot of difference in the sports activities of Cebuanos. Because of its accessible location and its facilities, the sports center has encouraged the development of different kinds of sports, as well as inspired many Cebuanos to engage in fitness and health-improving activities . It is located at the Abellana National School Grounds, Jones Avenue, Cebu City, Cebu.

The successful construction of the Abellana Oval gave way to Cebu's hosting of the 1994 Palarong Pambansa -- CCSC's first successful hosting of a major event, and subsequently, the hosting of seven game categories of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games held in November 2005.

View Of The Main Grandstand

Besides of being a sports facility, the Cebu City Sports Center is also the venue for the annual Sinulog Festival held every third Sunday of January.

I attended the Sinulog festival 2007 . A seat in the main Grandstand ranged from £5 to £10 - about a weeks wage for Fillipinos . You can see an athletics track , floodlights and goal posts though the Sinulog , one of the biggest festivals in the world , is the centre piece attraction not only in Cebu but throughout the Phillipines .

The Sinulog procession/street dancing begins early on a Sunday morning and finishes at midnight with an explosive and extremely colourful firework display . I've never seen so many people converging into one area , its massive and must be on any travelling tourists itenary .

Manny Pacquiao has used the complex for training and many famous actors and famous faces have taken part in the procession such Angel Locsin and Pedro Penduko .

Senor Sto Nino

The Santo Niño de Cebú ("Holy Child of Cebu") is a celebrated Roman Catholic statue of the Child Jesus venerated by Filipino Roman Catholics. Claiming to be the oldest religious image in the Philippines, the statue was originally donated by Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon and his wife Humamay in 1521



The statue is clothed in expensive textile robes and a gold crown, mostly donated from fervent devotees in the Philippines and abroad. The statue gained prominence when it miraculously survived a great parish fire in 1565. The statue is permanently housed under bulletproof glass at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño in Cebu City. Its feast is celebrated every third Sunday of January. It is one of the most recognizable cultural images in the Philippines found in many secular and religious areas.

Basilica Minore del Santo Niño