Exciting sights and sounds of Philippine festivals

Yeah, I've been surfing pretty much all day (Saturday....it's Sunday 2 a.m. now) and I found some interesting info about the Philippines.  One of which was some information about some festivals they have there.

I've always know that Filipinos were real big on singing and dancing and beauty contest and such communnity oriented things as that.  But I didn't know they had something very similar to our Mardi Gras.

I was on Youtube and I discovered some videos of festivals that had people dressed up in elaborate, colorful costumes and running around dancing to huge drum corps music.....all very exciting looking and sounding.  Apparently the Dinagyang Festival is a festival in one particular area of the country and the winner of it (and presumably festivals in other areas of the country) get to go to Manila to compete in another festival called the Aliwan Fiesta.

Here's three videos but you can find more on YouTube if you want to look.

And here's a couple of site URl for info about those particular festivals/fiestas.

http://www.pinoytravelblog.com/roadtrip/96/dinagyang-festival-2

http://www.aliwanfestival.com/