Al Cinco de Noviembre Festival: The Bloodless Revolution of Negros — A Tactical Victory
In Negros Occidental, history isn’t something confined to textbooks or museum walls—it’s lived, celebrated, and retold with heart. One of the most remarkable examples of this is the Al Cinco de Noviembre Festival, held every year on November 5. This isn’t your usual festival filled with random merrymaking. It commemorates an actual moment in 1898 when Negrenses pulled off one of the boldest bluffs in Philippine history—a bloodless revolution that ousted Spanish forces using fake cannons and wooden rifles. Sounds wild? It really happened. Instead of bullets, they used wit and unity, rolling out bamboo “cannons” and coconut-stalk rifles to scare the colonial powers into surrender. And the bluff worked. The Spanish garrison, thinking they were outgunned, gave up the fight.
