Concluded
Friday, September 4, 2026 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM CACO Theater
On the day
Updated 11 September 2026
September 4, 2026 | CACO Theater
No screens, no gadgets, just the games their parents and grandparents grew up on. On September 4, the CACO Theater filled with children playing the way Calbayog played long before phones: Uyag Kinahimat-an, the festival's revival of traditional children's games by the City Arts and Culture Office.
Uyag means play, and the day lived up to its name with nine games:
Limburak
Paper Dance
Sack Race
Trip to Jerusalem
Bagul Race, in big and small groups
Luksong Tinik
Message Relay
Flour Blowing
Pukpok Palayok
Winners took home cash prizes: P500 for each solo game winner in Limburak, Trip to Jerusalem, Luksong Tinik, and Pukpok Palayok, and P1,000 for the winning pairs and groups in Paper Dance, Sack Race, Bagul Race, Message Relay, and Flour Blowing.
The theater rang with laughter the whole day, a reminder in the middle of the festival week that hadang is also about handing things down, and some inheritances are as simple as a game.
Coverage by The Calbayog Journal | CJ Catalogue
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Featured
Featured
Hadang is an ancient Visayan ritual of making offerings to spirits, for protection, healing, good fortune or a bountiful harvest. It is still performed in Calbayog by local tambalans, and it is the foundation of the city's official festival: known until 2025 as the Sarakiki-Hadang Festival, named Hadang Festival by city ordinance on 1 September 2025, and three times champion at Samar's Tandaya Festival of Festivals.
The full story and every edition →← Previous
Miss Hadang Festival Queen: Coronation Night
Thu, 3 Sep · 7:00 PM
Next in the programme →
Hadang Ritual Street Dancing Competition and Grand Showdown
Sun, 6 Sep · 2:00 PM
Hadang Festival through the years
Every festival we cover keeps a permanent home here. The 2026 edition stays at this address, with its programme, its winners and its photographs, and when the 2027 festival is announced it will take its place right beside it.
Credits
Updated September 11, 2026
Reported with The Calbayog Journal.
