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CULTURAL ROADTRIP - PART I

Published Saturday, April 15, 2006 by XY | E-mail this post

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The last few days felt like a scene out of Y Tu Mama Tambien, where the characters saw different aspects of their culture as they drove from the city to a far off place in their mind was paradise.

Only I was just taking a road trip from Manila to Pampanga and Pampanga to a little known town in Central Zambales called Palauig.

The drive from Manila was pretty uneventful. In fact, we were in San Fernando within an hour or so. But after that, the real road trip begins.

But first, the basics.

Disclaimer: This post is not about religion or my beliefs. I'd really rather not go there because people, I find, are keen on arguing about this. On my part, religion, or actually, faith, is a matter between you and your god, and no one can argue that.

Fact #1. Like most Filipinos, I was born and raised a Catholic. I studied in private Catholic schools from pre-school up to MBA, with the exception of high school.

Fact #2. Ironically, my few years as Iskolar ng Bayan was what's molded me into the person I am now. These were the times that I saw more to life than my Catholic upbringing. So while I still uphold some Catholic traditions for the purposes of family togetherness, for all intents and purposes, I am no longer a Catholic.

Fact #3. I’ve always been a city girl, and this way, shielded from a lot of our religious traditions. We would get our cultural brushes during our rare visits to Daanbantayan (will be now referred to in this blog as DB; where my parents grew up and where the now-famous Malapascua Island is).

Fact #4. I have very little exposure to Lenten traditions. The most vivid I can recall from childhood is the Visita Iglesia - where we visit 7 churches on Holy Thursday, to pray as a family. We never did the Station of the Cross, and the truth is, I don’t remember what that is all about. (I also no longer know how to pray the rosary, even though I used to be a Marian back in elem. The nuns must really be ashamed of me now).

When in DB, we would do the painful tradition of Sugat (or Salubong in Tagalog, I suppose). Painful because 1, we had to get up in the wee hours of dawn (3AM?), in order to watch a little girl sing while tied to a wooden plank. And two, now that I am an adult looking back, the whole crude pulley system seemed really unsafe, and how on earth the little girls were able to sing in that condition, beats the hell out of me.

In DB, devotees also attend a midnight procession barefoot and whenever I get invited by my cousins, I just politely say no.

A few years back, I spent Holy Week at a friend's town in Quezon province. Their family had a yearly panata (promise?) to hold a one-night only pabasa in their home. I didn't have a clue on what they were singing about or why they were doing it. I just sat there with my friend, looking at all those people coming and going, mumbling (well apparently, singing). That went on until dawn. And here I was thinking that the Sugat was painful :)

to be continued...





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