Philippine Fiesta

Philippine Fiesta

Fiestas in the Philippines are held to celebrate a patron saint or to mark the passage of the seasons, depending on which part of the country you're in. The fiesta is part and parcel of Filipino culture. Each city and barangay has at least one local festival of its own, usually on the feast of its patron saint.

The roots of Philippine fiestas go back to before the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the 1500s. In the old animistic culture, regular ritual offerings were made to placate the gods, and these offerings evolved into the fiestas we know today. A wonderful fiesta season means good luck for the rest of the year.

For individual Filipinos, fiestas can be a way of supplicating the heavens or to make amends for past wrongs. In one place, penitents lash themselves with whips; in another, childless women dance on the streets hoping for the blessing of a child.

Every town and city in the Philippines has a fiesta of its own; whatever time of the year it is, there's sure to be a fiesta going on somewhere!

Fiestas and Why They Occur What actually are fiestas and why do these celebrations occur? The fiesta is of Spanish origin (the reason for the Spanish term). Spain, being a Roman Catholic country, set aside certain days to remember particular saints with processions and celebrations. When Spanish missionaries entered the Philippines during the mid-1500s, they found that the fiesta was a convenient tool to help teach Filipinos the Roman Catholic faith.

From the very beginning Spaniards brought missionaries to the Islands. The Spanish wanted to Christianize the people, as well as colonize the country. The missionaries tried to attract the people, who lived in widespread areas, to the towns where there were Roman Catholic churches. Missionaries hoped and expected that people would be drawn to and participate in the colorful processions and religious dramas.

Today, there are fiestas throughout the Philippines to celebrate events in the life of Jesus and Mary, and to honor saints who lived long ago. When the Spaniards came, many communities were given names of saints. Nearly all towns have a patron saint to remember.

The last nine mornings before Christmas throngs crowd the churches for predawn masses, the misa de aguinaldo (mass of the gift). The climax comes at midnight, December 24, when at the misa de gallo (mass of the rooster) Christ's birth is celebrated. Following that, people visit their parental homes for an elaborate dinner. Here grandchildren receive money from grandparents. The next morning, December 25, is quiet. The people sleep.

The celebration of Jesus' suffering and death is a bigger event than Christmas. Filipinos normally go to mass on Ash Wednesday and receive ashes on their forehead from the officiating priest. On Palm Sunday, cleverly woven palms are bought and blessed at church, and then later brought home. Many rituals are observed as Holy Week continues. The passion story is chanted from booths temporarily constructed along the streets. In the cities some people drag heavy crosses along the road. Others walk along the streets whipping themselves to fulfill a vow to God or to do penance. On Thursday, all those who can, return to their home town. Every year on Good Friday, some individuals allow themselves to be publicly and openly crucified for some minutes. The country comes to a standstill.

On Easter morning, the meeting of Jesus and his mother, Mary, is acted out in church services and in public dramas. Yet, in the Filipino setting, the resurrection of Jesus is far less important than his suffering and death. Paradoxically, at the same time that people remember the suffering Christ, they also gather with their families to eat and drink in a festive mood. A further paradox is found in the crucifix, a cross with Christ hanging on it. The typical Protestant cross, in striking contrast is empty. It eloquently declares that Christ is risen.

Town fiestas have many faces. They usually feature a mass and a procession. Long after the religious ritual is completed, people eat, drink, and enjoy the rest of the day. Unfortunately, all too often excessive drinking mars the festivities.

Each year towns located on the sea have their own unique processions. Perhaps the most famous is the feast of Our Lady of Penafranca, in Naga City, approximately 450 km. southeast of Manila. Here a flower-decked raft with a shrine to Mary is floated down the river. Another famous fiesta is the annual three-day festival in Obando, Bulacan, just north of Manila. The procession for this festival is particularly famous because of its special dances of childless couples, who believe that these dances will fulfill their wishes and prayers for a child. It is also said that the "lovelorn suitors" come here to pray for a wife. Young women also come to pray for a husband.

The fiesta — always colorful, always accompanied by music, feasting, and Roman Catholic ritual — takes an important place in a town's calendar. But where did the Philippine fiesta really have its origin? Did zealous Roman Catholic missionaries initiate this practice?

Very likely Filipinos adapted p r e -Hispanic rituals to fit Spanish Roman Catholic colonial demands. Filipinos often did this. An ancient Filipino fertility rite, for instance, probably survives in the Obando fiesta though today it passes simply for a Roman Catholic festival. The traditional dance steps seem to pre-date the arrival of Spanish missionaries. The procession of a fiesta in Laguna, southeast of Manila, includes dancers who crouch, shake their shoulders, and imitate handicapped people. It is thought the practice goes back to the distant past when handicapped people looked for healing from priestess healers.

Early in the Spanish period (1565-1898), existing folk rituals seem often to have been combined with what the missionaries were trying to teach. According to Roman Catholic scholars, after some three hundred years of Spanish presence in the Philippines, most of the pre-Spanish features of the festivals have faded. The fiestas have become Filipino Roman Catholic feasts.