Inaul Festival to highlight Maguindanaon textiles

Maguindanaons hope that Davaoeños can come to their annual festival as they organize a week-long celebration about their culture.

Maguindanao Tourism Officer promoted their upcoming Inaul Festival 2018 themed “A Fabric of Peace: Weaving Diversity, Connecting Boundaries” on February 5-14, 2018, at a press conference in SM last Monday.

Ayesha Dilangen, ARMM Tourism Secretary, said “we hope that people in Mindanao, like you Davaoeños, can witness the Inaul festival. Let’s be proud of Maguindanao province in spite of the diversity of our cultures. We hope that we could connect our boundaries.”

Inaul is a festival that promotes their colorful Inaul fabric that reflects the vibrance of the Maguindanaon culture, together with the weavers who painstakingly created them.

“Inaul” means woven, a unique fabric manually and meticulously woven mostly by Maguindanao women. The Provincial Government of Maguindanao would like to honor them through this.

“There will be festival parades, presentations, competitions, concerts and other events that will expose how vivacious the culture of Maguindanao is. Everyone is welcome to join and witness the festival as targeted tourist arrival will increase by about 15% from 10,000 tourists last year,” said Dilangen.

The increasing numbers of Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel protecting and securing the safety of the people are appreciated. They are also grateful that there are no records of casualties that happened last year. Aside from the tourist attractions and event, they would also like to promote the delicious foods in Maguindanao as they brought food samples.

Inaul Festival was launched last February 2017. (Jomarie Dawn Tajo | HCDC Intern)