When planning this trip I honestly didn’t have much planned other than Sinulog itself. The performances and the parade were scheduled for Sunday, January 19th. We arrived early to get acclimated to Cebu and spend time with my family. Tito Alan let me know that Sofronio Vasquez would be having a concert at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino.
Tito Alan had been telling me about Sofronio when he was on The Voice. Telling me to vote for him. Why? Not just because he’s Filipino and from Ozamis City, which is my parents hometown in Mindanao. But also because he is my cousin. Not in the Filipino way that people say they’re cousins to have some sort of connection. But cousin cousins like actually related. His mom is second cousins with my dad. So to Americans folks would say we are third cousins once removed. But in Filipino families it means we’re third cousins. None of the removed part.
Tito Alan let me know that Sofronio would be holding his first show after winning The Voice and asked if we would be interested in the show. Since we didn’t have anything planned I said yes. We got tickets for the VIP meet and greet. Tito Alan pointed out that most folks in the VIP section were from Ozamis. He recognized and knew a lot of people in our section.
While at the show, I recognized my Tita Gemma walking to her seats. Tita Gemma had lived in the States for a while and retired to the Philippines last year. When I was a kid growing up Papa Dodge would say that Tita Gemma looked like her father, who my family called Tiyo Pepe. It was so funny, when we were having our post concert meal Tito Alan said the same thing to Tita Gemma! Tita Gemma proclaimed “Hoy that’s what Dodge used to always say to me.” It truly felt like Papa and Mama were there with us. I was so happy to run into my Tita Gemma. I didn’t think I’d run into any of my mom’s side of the family on this trip. So seeing her was such a wonderful surprise.
Sofronio is an excellent singer. I didn’t keep up with The Voice, so I honestly didn’t know much about his performances. I did know that he was on Team Buble. Throughout the show there were clips of The Voice so I got to see a glimpse of his story. Sofronio is super talented and he seemed quite humble. Can’t wait to see what he does in the future. The highlight of his show was the OPM medley he did. Sofronio sang my favorite Eraserheads song “Ang Huling El Bimbo” and I gladly swayed and sang along to that one. Hopefully we can get him on This Filipino American Life podcast!
After the concert we were all starving so we hit the restaurant in the casino. In our hunger we somehow ordered 3 soups. A lechon soup, a siningang, and a nilaga. I couldn’t help but laugh. It only felt right that we ordered so many soups given the fact that my family has boholano roots and Mike’s family is from the island that created La Paz Batchoy.
While waiting I played a slot machine and it just felt right. Did I win? No. Did my father in law win? Yes. I put in 200 pesos while he put in 1000. I was not expecting to play slots that night. A friend of mine responded to my slot machine post with “That feels like the most Filipino thing you’ve posted so far.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that.
And we haven’t even gotten to the Sinulog of it all. This is all the lead up to the festival! I do appreciate seeing Santo Nino everywhere. Like seeing baby Jesus in all his red and gold glory, just brought a smile to my face every time.