Photography by Ligaya Caballes, Marie Tablizo-Manalo, and Marion york

Every year on the first Sunday of June, Madison Ave in New York City comes alive with vibrant colors, rhythmic beats and a display of traditional textiles during the NYC Philippine Independence Day Parade. Running along Madison Ave from 38th-27th Street, hundreds of people gathered to see the parade.

This year is the 125th anniversary of the commemoration of the Philippines Independence and the 33rd annual celebration in NYC.

 I have been coming to the parade for over a decade now, first attending with my old Filipino youth group, Paaralang Pinoy, as we marched in our yellow shirts. Since then, every year I see that the parade draws in more and more people to join the festivities. Its reputation continues to grow and it has become the largest street parade outside of the Philippines.

Some notable performances in this years parade includes dancers from Bacolod City in Negros Occidental, Philippines, who performed dances representing the MassKara Festival. Donning colorful masks, they got the crowd cheering as they paraded through the streets of NYC. Others performed dances representing another festival in the Philippines, Sinulog, which is held in Cebu, Philippines.

Dancers representing the Sinulog Festival in Cebu, Philippines.

Representatives from the MassKara Festival, held in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines every year in October, danced along Madison Ave entertaining the crowd.

Kinding Sindaw, a local NYC-based nonprofit dance theater company run by indigenous activist and cultural bearer, Potri Ranka Manis, a member of the Meranao community. Kinding Sindaw performs traditional dances and plays from various indigenous cultural groups in Mindanao and is a well known part of the Filipino NYC community. 

Marching together with members of Kinding Sindaw are members representing Choose Bangsamoro: The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, who wave the green, white and red flag representing the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region. This includes the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Cotabato City.

The group, Tribu Gingoog, represented the Kaliga Festival of Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental, Philippines. The annual festival occurs every July and showcases the culture and dances of the Manobo and Higaonon. The word “kaliga” means thanksgiving and the festival itself is a thanksgiving festival, where they dance and perform rituals for abundance and prosperity. Some of the dances performed include the Binanog (eagle), Inamo (monkey) and Inuwang (shrimp hunters and shrimps), each movement of the dances representing certain aspects of the overall thanksgiving ritual.

A few Filipino celebrities attended the parade including Filipino-American actor, Xian Lim, and models Venus Raj, who was Binibining Pilipinas Universe 2010 and the 4th runner up for Miss Universe 2010, Megan Young, who was crowned Miss World 2013, and Miss Universe 2022, R’Bonney Nola Gabriel. 

After the parade, my boyfriend and I headed to the street fair that is close to Madison Square Park. Nearby is the stage area where they have performers come up, however none of the Kapwa Team stayed too long to see and cover that. The street fair was pretty crowded and long lines for certain stalls made up most of the street fair. Unfortunately, due to this I wasn’t able to see and cover every vendor and food stall. I did manage to check out one though, which was Kalye, a pretty recent addition to the Filipino culinary restaurants in and around the NYC area. My boyfriend and I bought their Pork Ube Sliders and some ube ice cream that was inside a bun. Both were really delicious and as someone who doesn’t like pork, whatever sauce they used tasted amazing and I absolutely loved the Ube Sliders. Maybe it was either the Manang or Manong sauce that they had displayed? Either way, the food was delicious and shout out to Kristine for inviting me to visit your food stall. It was lovely meeting and talking to you about Kalye and I can’t wait to visit the restaurant in person in the future! 

You can follow Kalye @kalye.nyc on Instagram and on their website, https://www.kalye.com/. If you are in the area, don’t forget to check them out at 251 Broome Street New York, NY 10002.