HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween!

My grandnephew David Johnson dressed as Harry  Potter

It's an American tradition that has taken root in the Philippines. Half a century ago no one in the country had ever heard of observing  Trick or Treating... now we've embraced it fully. Most of the posh villages and expensive hotels have their ghouls and goblins on display. Halloween parties abound especially in street parties in Malate. Every excuse just to let loose...

This year, Halloween was sort of an advanced celebration with the Black Party having a tie -up with the Love Yourself Project at Malate last 29 October. This is an event that fosters self-love among members of the LGBT-MSM sector that propagates AIDS Awareness and Education among the youth. So the Orosa and Nakpil Bars had a hey-day of all sorts of gays in  outlandish costumes. If you really think about it, a considerable population of LGBT-MSM sector's population has been cut down by the deadly scourge of AIDS. But that's another story...

Grandniece Mia as Hermione Granger complete with wand and broom

I'm not certain which came first, though... Did we, Filipinos come up with the idea even before Trick or Treating became a trend in the gated communities of Makati?  Or was it more of an amalgamation of our Western and Asian influences?

The Two Hogwarts students hamming it up!

Filipinos have long honored their dead. This can be gleaned from pre-colonial artifacts like jewelry and funeral masks unearthed from archeological digs found all over the archipelago. The oldest and most distinct artifact would be manunggul jar found in the Tabon Cave complex in Palawan. The jar is a secondary funeral urn that has a boatman and passenger on a boat depicting a journey...to the underworld...

At the Ayala Museum, which houses an extensive collection of gold artifacts, the items were found in mostly grave sites as  send-off presents to the beloved who have moved on to the after-life. The jewelry and funerary masks are of exquisite quality with fine detailing and crafstmanship. Honoring the dead was carried on over the centuries up until the present.

Actually, the Filipino term UNDAS, was/is a term coined from the Spanish terms HONRAS FUNEBRES. It simply means funeral rites or last rites to honor the dead. Over the centuries, the term was shortened and eventually filipinized to the current term of undas. But ask any Filipino below twenty, no thirty even, and they wouldn't know how the term was derived.

So those ghoulish celebrations in Vigan and Capiz and the centuries old tradition of Pangangaluluwa, may not be western after all. But because of the hype and media attention of the Harry Potter, Vampire chronicles of Anne Rice and the Twilight Saga, not to mention the TV series of TeenWolf and Vampire Diaries have tweaked the celebrations into a more Hollywood style celebration. TV Networks cash in on the long weekend b scaring everyone  sh___tless by airing all the old horror movies and the scary TV documentaries.

As far as I can remember, we would  trek to the cemetery on 01 November to honor and pray for our dearly departed. My Lola (Candida) would painstakingly prepare food for everybody and my cousins and I would be in charge of carrying stuff. Cases of bottled soda, cauldrons of rice, adobo and pancit, bags of sandwiches. bayongs with cutlery and paper plates, wads of paper napkins, bunches of flowers and candles rolled in newspaper, folding chairs, umbrellas to fend of rain and heat. We carried everything but the kitchen sink in those days.

These days, it's all very convenient... Just step out of the cemetery gates and you can feast on pasta, pizza, doughnuts, burgers, fried chicken, sodas... anything your tummy craves for as long as you can afford it. Well, Filipinos love fiesta. So, the franchises have offered stiff competition to the common vendor who try to eke out a living specially on occasions like this.

So this year will be like the other years past. My brother Edwin and I will be trekking towards the Manila South Cemetery to offer prayers to our Lolo and Lola, my parents, and an aunt and a relative who took care of us. Food will not be as plentiful as before as it's only two of us visiting. But it doesn't make it any less fun... right?