Soli-Soli Festival

St. Joseph Church celebrates the Soli-soli festival every third Sunday of March. Activities such as parade of colorful dancers, dance contest, band presentation, disco and beauty pageants are highlights of this occasion. People in San Francisco also celebrates this event by cooking delicious food and inviting friends and families from nearby towns for a “salo-salo” (filipino word which means get together).

Getting to St. Joseph Church is easy because it is one of the landmarks and it is in the main town of Camotes. Just ask a “habal-habal” (cebuano word which means motorcycle-for-hire) driver to bring you there. It is situated minutes away from the Baywalk and the Causeway, which connects the two biggest island of Camotes, namely Poro and Pacijan Islands.

         The town fiesta in San Francisco (Pacijan Island, Camotes) is celebrated for the town’s patron, St. Joseph and takes place on 18th and 19th March. On the evening of the 18th there’s a festival celebration in the local sports center. The festival king and queen are crowned and this is followed by a show featuringdancers and other entertainers. Most people sit in the sports center stand to watch the event, but for a price you can rent a table along with chairs. If you want anything to drink during the event, you’ll have to go out of the sports center to one of the little side stalls. 

          Here you’ll be able to purchase beer, water and soft drinks.

The highlight of the fiesta is the Soli Soli Festival, which takes place on the afternoon of the 19th. The festival is named after a type of grass which can be found around Lake Danao. The festival features a freestyle street dancing competition, similar to the Sinulog Festival in Cebu City. The action takes place in the grounds of the San Francisco Elementary School. It’s split into 2 sections, the local elementary schools and the 7 national high schools on the island all take part. Stock up on snacks and water before you go in to watch the dancing. There aren’t any stalls inside the school grounds and no stalls close at hand outside.

Actual Dance

Soli soli is a kind of grass that grows abundantly around Lake Danao. For many years, the grass served as a source of livelihood for people living near the lake’s boundaries. Woven by careful and artistic hands after when dried, soli-soli magnificently turns into beautiful bags, hats, centerpieces and the like. Soli-soli festival is a thanksgiving for blessing the town with soli-soli which helped the people in uplifting their economic standards.)

Street Dancing

       A much anticipated event that features a colorful processional parade where people wearing traditional dresses perform a staged dance presentation to a distinctive beat is the Soli-Soli Festival of San Francisco, Camotes.

        This festival, celebrated every third Sunday of March, is inspired from the lovely grass which is harvested from Lake Danao and woven into native handicrafts that are then sold to both local and mainland markets.