incessant rambling

Most fiestas in the Philippines has taken on a very commercial tone with pageants, diskoral, perya as standard activities on top of the usual novena, mass service and procession. A classic example is the Sinulog in Cebu City although the pre-parade activities are usually very solemn. I had the opportunity to join the sakay sakay (fluvial procession) in Naga to honor Mother Mary, it's an old story that i wrote about almost a year ago. nothing changed much, the Lady is taken from her home in Barangay Tuyan and brought to the sea where it boards a boat and sets off to the port of the Poblacion in Naga City where they go on a procession to the main church.  The reverse happens and they end up in Tuyan parish church where they also hold another procession. For those that are not familiar with the story, the image of the Lady was found on top of a floating plank off the coast of Tuyan where the natives brought it in and enshrined it in a small chapel. At one point, th...

the old cliche is that once you've seen a fiesta in the philippines, you've seen them all. but what if you get the chance to witness the beginnings of a new event that is bound to be part of a town's socio-cultural tradition? Pinamungajan usually celebrate the town fiesta in honor of its patron saint, Sta. Monica sometime early May of every year. This year is different as they formally named the fiesta "Pamuhuan" which roughly translates to "day's returns". Pamuhuan is a barter system in kind where people volunteer work and get paid in kind or get a share of the produce. This year's celebration marked a number of firsts: Manny Pacquiao was honored by a shrine to acknowledge his roots from guimbawian, a mountain barangay where his father traces his family lineage. This is also some sort of a "first" for Gwen Garcia (governor) to attend the festivities considering that the local town political clan ran against her line up in the previou...