Festival queen crowned tonight

At least 11 beauties will be vying for tonight’s Sinulog Festival Queen title, touted as the grandest in the pageant’s six-year history.

A lass from Negros Occidental, 17-year-old Kim Villacampo, was adjudged Best in Runway during a preliminary runway modeling contest where the 11 early registrants strut the runway in their official getups.

However, the fashion show has no bearing on the main event tonight, said Junjet Primor, one of the pageant’s organizers.

Villacampo, dressed in a bright red gown patterned after a cabbage rose with gold highlights, butterfly adornments and a headdress of artificial flowers, easily outshone her rivals.

The gown, however, was made of inexpensive materials, she said.

“Dili mahibaw-an nga plastic ra diay ni sa sud-an (You can’t tell that it’s just the kind of plastic bags that you put food in),” said Villacampo, pointing to the petticoat under her gown.

She represented San Carlos City in Negros Occidental, whose contingent is one of four out-of-town groups whose lead dancers signed up for the Sinulog Festival Queen competition. The main contest will be held tonight, 7:30 p.m., at the Cebu City Sports Center.

For the 30th Sinulog anniversary, the contest will be on a grander scale to seek out a modern-day Hara Amihan.

A total of 15 contestants are expected to sign up. Last year, there were 23.

The Sinulog Festival Queen pageant tonight will have three parts.

First, each contestant will walk on stage after introducing herself. Then she performs a dance along with a limited number of members from her Sinulog contingents. Finally, the lead dancer has to dress up in her official contingent gown and dance alone, carrying the image of the Sto. Niño.

Each contestant will be judged based on her total appearance (50 percent), group dance performance (30 percent), and her solo performance (20 percent).

The Sinulog Festival Queen pageant aims to pay homage to Hara Amihan, wife of Cebu’s 16th century ruler Rajah Humabon.