Celebrating Filipino Heritage through Cultural Floats and Dances in Neepawa, Manitoba

The celebration of Filipino Heritage month in Neepawa was once again filled with colorful floats and dances. Same as last year, the concept was to showcase the culture and traditions of each region in the Philippines. This annual parade is awaited not only by the Filipino community but also by other nationalities in the community because of the very beautiful floats and the very fun and cheerful regional participants.

Liway Cabrera was able to interview some of the regional representatives and they described the cultural significance of their float. One of the regions we talked to is the BIBAK group. BIBAK is an acronym for the major mountain provinces (plus one chartered City - Baguio) in the Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines. The BIBAK Neepawa chapter was joined by the President of the Winnipeg Chapter, Ms. Marife Cadag. She mentioned that with the growing number of Filipino immigrants from BIBAK, they were able to form a new chapter from the Neepawa-Gladstone area.

On the other hand, a region was still represented despite the few numbers of participants - the group is WARAY from the Eastern Visayas region in the Philippines. They even encouraged other Filipinos in Neepawa who came from their region to join them next year. Lastly, a very new and distinct group was able to join this year which is a sectoral group, the LGBTQ. They mentioned that with the growing number of LGBTQ in the Filipino community, they decided to join to represent their sector and to show the people that they are present and would also want to contribute to the betterment of the community.

These regional representations create smaller communities within the Filipino community and is a also a way for them to connect and understand their roots.