Kumbira began as the 1st Cagayan de Oro Cultural and Culinary Festival on August 23, 1996, a very modest one-day event by today’s standards, even though the Cagayan de Oro City Council passed a resolution declaring it a week-long celebration from August 23 to 30.
However, COHARA wanted something distinctly local. While discussing what name would be most appropriate, the Board recalled that when Kagay-anons have a fiesta or celebration, they would say, “Mag Kumbira!”—a local expression that felt truly their own. Beginning the following year, in August 1997, the festival became known as Kumbira!
The original COHARA Logo and Kumbira wordmark were designed by Ingrid Agudo, one of COHARA’s founding members, with the Kumbira icon added later.
The logo was subsequently refined and developed over time for more consistent use across different applications, with much of that refinement undertaken by Jocelyn Gordiel Balbon of Cagayan River View Inn, who was also a member of the COHARA Board at the time. She continues to contribute to Kumbira’s visual identity and anniversary materials for its 30th year.
“As I started handling COHARA’s collaterals in the later years, I gradually refined and iterated the logo to improve its scalability, legibility, and consistency across different applications,” Ms. Jocelyn explained. “So these are not different logos—the current one is the refined version of the original created by Ingrid. The refinements came later as I worked with it across different materials.”
“In 1998, our Kumbira backdrop was still styling the event name without the symbol,” she recalls. “But our 2000 backdrop already shows the Kumbira logo, so based on the photo documentation I have, the logo was already in use by 2000.”
She worked on refining the Kumbira logo system for the festival’s 15th anniversary in 2011, and refined it further in 2013. The version refined in 2013 has continued to be used up to the present.
