Festival

Ispadahay Festival

Street Dance · San Miguel · May 8, fixed by municipal resolution

When
May 8, fixed by municipal resolution
Held
Annual

Overview

Ispadahay Festival is San Miguel, Bohol’s annual street dancing festival, held every May 8, listed in the provincial tourist-attraction inventory under Customs and Traditions. “Ispadahay” is an acronym-style Cebuano phrase — ISaulog and PAgsadya ug Daro sa KaharuHAY, rendered in English as “Tilling Life… Sowing Love… Reaping Joy” — adopted through Municipal Resolution No. 075, series of 2009, which renamed and revived an earlier festival called Espadahan. Espadahan was first staged in 1993 under the initiative of the San Miguel Parish and Rev. Fr. Floro Hinacay, with barangay delegations performing under the Barangay Pastoral Council; it was later formalized as the municipality’s official street dancing festival by Municipal Ordinance No. 2 (authored by SB Member Mario Jala), meant to be performed once every three years, but lapsed after 2001. As Ispadahay, the festival specifically honors farming as the town’s main livelihood — “Ispadahay best describes the town’s main source of living which is farming and almost all of the residents rely on this livelihood” — rather than a single crop or the parish patron saint, and its street dance follows four set steps: Ispada, Dawal (daro and bugwal), Halad, and Pasalamat.

Whether the modern festival program has grown to include trade fairs or sports competitions alongside the street dance isn’t documented in any source found — check the municipal tourism office or the town’s Facebook page for the current year’s full activity schedule.

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Location

San Miguel, Bohol. San Miguel is a municipality in north-central Bohol, approximately 50–60 km north of Tagbilaran City.

Getting There

From Tagbilaran City, buses and jeepneys bound for northern Bohol municipalities pass through or near San Miguel. Southern Star Bus Transit operates scheduled bus service between Tagbilaran and San Miguel, roughly 3.5 hours by bus depending on stops (about 5 trips daily); driving takes roughly 1 hour 20 minutes. No source confirms whether extra trips or shuttles run specifically for festival day, so book an early bus or arrange private transport if travelling in for May 8.

Practical Info

  • Date: May 8, annually (per Municipal Resolution No. 075, series of 2009)
  • Venue: likely the San Miguel town plaza or main street, in keeping with other Bohol street-dancing festivals, but no source names the exact route — confirm the parade route locally on the day.
  • Confirmed as a street dancing festival with historical barangay-delegation participation.

What to Expect

A municipal festival reflecting local customs and traditions in San Miguel, centered on street dancing rather than the generic sinulog-style routines staged in many other Bohol towns — the choreography here dramatizes tilling and farming life step by step, in a sequence set out above and unique to the town. Barangay delegations have historically been the core participants, a format inherited from the festival’s 1993 predecessor, Espadahan.

Notes

  • San Miguel municipality also features Bayongan Dam, Manay’s Farm, and Langgam Cave — potentially combinable with a festival visit.
  • Ispadahay’s May 8 date coincides with San Miguel’s town fiesta, which honors the patron saint Michael the Archangel (per the Wikipedia citation below). None of the sources found in the 2026-07-28 research pass state that Ispadahay is formally the same civic occasion as the fiesta — the official provincial-government description characterizes Ispadahay strictly as an agricultural/livelihood-themed street dancing festival, not as a patron-saint feast — so this remains a same-date coincidence rather than a confirmed identity between the two events.
  • Bohol Provincial Tourism Profile 2025 (Provincial Planning and Development Office, Bohol — official provincial government document, p.144), accessed 2026-07-28 — source for the May 8 date, Resolution No. 075 series of 2009 (renaming “Espadahan” to “Ispadahay”), the “ISaulog and PAgsadya ug Daro sa KaharuHAY” / “Tilling Life… Sowing Love… Reaping Joy” meaning, the farming/livelihood theme, and the four dance steps (Ispada, Dawal, Halad, Pasalamat).
  • SAN MIGUEL, BOHOL: ISPADAHAY FESTIVAL, The Backpackman travel blog (post credits “Image and Info.” to the Municipality of San Miguel Facebook Page), accessed 2026-07-28 — source for the 1993 Espadahan origin under Rev. Fr. Floro Hinacay and the San Miguel Parish, Municipal Ordinance No. 2, the original every-three-years schedule, and the lapse after 2001.
  • Ispadahay Festival post, Municipality of San Miguel, Bohol (official Facebook page), accessed 2026-07-28 — corroborates the festival name, theme, and English translation directly from the municipality.
  • Tagbilaran to San Miguel, Central Visayas, Philippines route, Rome2Rio, accessed 2026-07-28 — source for Southern Star Bus Transit’s Tagbilaran–San Miguel bus service (~3.5 hrs, ~5 trips/day) and driving time (~1h20m). Rome2Rio is a crowdsourced/algorithmic routing aggregator rather than an official transit authority; treat timing/frequency as indicative, not an official schedule.
  • San Miguel, Bohol, Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-17 (source for the May 8 / St. Michael the Archangel fiesta date, cited for context only).

Where it happens

Plan the trip around the host town