The streets of Waikiki were transformed into a wild Filipino Mardi Gras yesterday.

Thousands were treated to the first-ever Santo Nino Festival to combine three of the biggest Holy Child festivals in the Philippines — the Ati-Atihan of Aklan, the Dinagyang of Iloilo, and the Sinulog of Cebu — celebrated the third and fourth weekends of each January.

Each year, millions attend the annual festivals in the Philippines, which include dancing in the streets, colorful costumes, loud drumming and round-the-clock revelry.

Yesterday's abbreviated version began with a Kalakaua Avenue parade from Fort DeRussy to Kapi'olani Park and an hourlong concelebrated Mass at the park's bandstand. Those were followed by martial-arts exhibitions, dance performances, musical entertainment, and plenty of food and information booths.

The occasion was an opportunity for Hawai'i's Filipino Centennial Celebration to continue its monthslong tribute of the arrival of the first Filipino plantation workers here in December 1906.

It also was a chance to highlight many aspects of Filipino culture for the public, said Centennial Commission chairman Elias Beniga.

"This is the first time that we've tried to present these three festivals together," Beniga said.

"I'm pleased that we've been able to put on another event that brought together the Filipino community. But we also have an opportunity to present the diversity of the heritage of the culture to the rest of our population."

Many in the crowd said they'd like to see the Hawai'i Santo Ni–o Festival become an annual event.

"This is a big thing each year in the Philippines," said Erwin Gabrillo, whose Sinulog parade float featured a 15-foot-long, 3-D map of Cebu, where Ferdinand Magellan introduced Christianity to the Philippines in 1521 and gave Santo Ni–o, the Holy Child image, as a baptismal gift to Hara Amihan, wife of Cebu's leader, Rajah Humabon.

The Santo Ni–o festivals are themselves a combination of Christian and pagan rituals, according to Jun Colmenares, event chairman.

"Since we were celebrating the Filipino Centennial Celebration also this year, we thought the Filipino community could contribute this Santo Ni–o Festival," he said.

Each of the trio of festivals has a different historic origin, he explained. The Ati-Atihan — considered the wildest of the three — dates back to the 13th century, and has evolved into an annual thanksgiving celebration in which celebrants paint their faces with black soot and don outlandish costumes.

The Dinagyang festival is characterized by hypnotic drumming, frenzied foot-stomping and hordes of chanting revelers dressed in fantastic garb. It is an offshoot of the Ati-Atihan, Colmenares said.

Sinulog is the festival of worship, thanksgiving and merrymaking and celebrates an event in 1575 when Spaniards attacked and burned a village on Cebu. In of the rubble, villagers found the image of Santo Ni–o, blackened but not burned. They considered it a miracle, and today the Basilica of the Santo Ni–o stands where the image was recovered.

Among the fearsome-appearing dancers were 10 members of the Waipahu High School soccer team, who were covered in soot from head to toe and wore dazzling fire costumes.

"We only had five days to learn the dance," said team coach Al Banas, who was nonetheless delighted by the result. "This is tribal costume from the Philippines. These are like the marauder warriors who protected the Santo Ni–o."

One of the more colorful dance troupes was the 30-member Tribu Sa Sugbo Pundok So Kapi'olani, whose stunning red, gold and white satin costumes were intensified by the blazing sunshine.

"We're not affiliated with any organization," said the group's leader, Paul Secretaria, 60, who said each person on the dance team is a member of the same Secretaria family.

"We make this costume design ourselves here, and one of our members went to Cebu for vacation, and they were all made there," Secretaria shouted above the sounds of drumming and a nearby exhibition of Eskrima, a weapons-based martial-art that's the national sport of the Philippines.

Nearby, at least one person remained unaffected by all the fuss, noise and commotion — Secretaria's 2-year-old granddaughter, Mary Fey Quisagan, who lay snoozing peacefully in her stroller, as though she were floating on a cloud.

FILIPINO EVENTS THROUGH JUNE