TSINELAS FESTIVAL

To mark the anniversary of the town’s cityhood, Gapan City holds its annual Tsinelas Festival, with street dancing, parade of floats decorated with regular to gigantic 7 ft. slippers the famous slippers bazaar. The festival is aimed at bolstering the new city’s claim as the North Slippers Capital.

Just about every Filipino, probably even those now living abroad, knows the comfort of

wearing a pair of tsinelas or slippers. In celebration of its ubiquity, the city of Gapan in

Nueva Ecija holds an annual fiesta called the Tsinelas Festival, but this is mainly to

mark the anniversary of its cityhood and to strengthen its claim of being the North Slippers

Capital of the Philippines. It is celebrated with a parade of floats, which are decorated with

slippers of all shapes, colors and sizes. There is also a number of streetdancing.

The Tsinelas Festival is celebrated every August 25 of the year. It is an audacious event

wherein the city’s sandal manufacturing businesses create gigantic sandals that line up

along Maharlika Highway, in front of the city’s municipal hall. While the sandal making industry

has been around since the 1930s, it was only during the last decade that Gapan manufacturers,

supported by the local government, officially started the Tsinelas Festival.