Culture

The Land of the Howling...

Culture is the totality of people’s lifestyles and life stories. It summarizes one’s place’s history and reflects its civilization. It is an identity. There is no place without culture; there is no society without culture. Without it, there is no existence; no stories to share to future generations. Catanduanes, a small kidney-shaped island in the Pacific, abounds with a conglomeration of folkways and mores which constitute its rich culture. Some of these stories are commendable while others are dishonourable to some extent. Catanduanes has been known as the “Land of the Howling Winds” because of the many strong tropical cyclones that visit it every year and leave it devastated and desolated like a lover forsaken by a beloved. But aside from this epithet affixed to our province which implies its geographical condition and location, are there still other words we can attach to the phrase “Land of the Howling...” which in one way or another will help other people imagine and understand what our province really is? Well, maybe we just need to try.
Land of the Howling Pigs and Drunkards Percy Bysshe Shelley in his “Ode to the West Wind” wrote, “O trumpet of the Prophecy, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’. Cirilo Bautista, that celebrated Filipino poet, wrote in one of his essays, “If summer comes, can teacher seminars be far behind?”. I, on the other hand ask, “If summer comes, can fiestas be far behind?” This is the summer of the year 2013. And summer is not just a time for vacation and excursions, it is also a time for the undying tradition of fiesta. It is so amusing (and appetizing!) to know that that many barangay fiestas in Catanduanes fall on summer which is a vacation time. Now how did this queer coincidence come to be so? Is it really just a mere coincidence? Or the voracious colonizers deliberately made it so? Now these curious questions are not the subject of my essay so we’ll leave them to the historians. Summer—time of fiestas—time of howling pigs being butchered—time of howling drunkards who try to outdo the loudness of the pigs’ howls during their slaughter day. The eve of every fiesta is devoted to butchering pigs—pigs taken care of and fattened just for this very day! The poor pigs all around the places call one another asking for assistance from their kin and allies to be saved from this predicament which they don’t understand. They can’t recall committing any crime to be maltreated and tormented this way. Yet no pig is free to come and save the day and be a superman—I mean superpig. On this day, owners of pigs turn into angels with sharp swords and re-enact the popular biblical scene, “The Killing of the First Born”. But this time it is called the “Killing of the First Pig to Reach the Desired Bulk”. And if the blood of the sacrificial lamb in the biblical scene was used to mark the door of the Israelites to be saved from the horrible death, here the blood of the sacrificed pigs are cooked into dinuguan to sate the appetite of the most eager and earliest visitors to be saved from death of hunger. At the terminal stage of the fiesta celebration, there are new howlers—former homo sapiens who deliberately metamorphosed into lower level of animals worse than pigs. They metamorphose with the help of a dark spirit—the spirit of liquor! They claim that they have come to save the poor pigs although too late for the action. So they pick fights with their hosts and co-visitors. They provoke their enemies by asking them stupid and maddening questions like: Who hid my slipper?! and Who curved and bent the way?!
And so we must always remember, pigs howl to signal the start of a fiesta celebration; drunkards howl to signal the end.

Land of the Howling Pilgrims Summer is also the time to commemorate the life, passion and death of Jesus Christ; Lenten Season. In our province, there is a young tradition during the Maundy Thursday wherein mostly youths participate. Thousands of teenagers will be seen walking shoulder to shoulder, pair by pair, holding hands even, and dressed in the most innovative and attractive way that they can. No, they are not bound to a huge Holy Week party but to doing sacrificial pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Sorrow in Batong Paloway, San Andres. This is locally known as Alay-Lakad. The ridiculous fact is that they never look like religious people on a solemn pilgrimage but a crowd of party-goers. It seems like they are attending a great vesper ball in a certain barangay fiesta. It is not the divine spirit which binds them all but the social spirit to stroll and show-off whatever they can show-off. Others don’t even understand and internalize what they are doing. Maybe they just saw a moving crowd and followed and hoped there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Others just want to be with strangers they haven’t been for a long time. Shameful charade! After the Alay-Lakad, there will be a jeepney race. This is an annual custom. One of the criteria for the race is that the jeepney will not be seen during the race. So the pilgrims squeeze themselves inside the vehicle and others crowd outside to hide the jeep. The jeepney will not leave until there is a space seen by the audience. And once every part of the vehicle is covered, time to ride? NO! Time to fly! The riding pilgrims during the race howl out indigestible words to the walking pilgrims on the side of the road. Some howl out blasphemies. But the worst is not yet. Some riding pilgrims would just be shocked when other pilgrims howl out for joy while a walking pilgrim howls out in pain. What happened? A pious riding pilgrim has just thrown a stone to an innocent and harmless walking pilgrim. But this is not always the case that the riding pilgrims howl in joy while a walking pilgrim howl in pain because sometimes it is vice-versa.

Land of the Howling Vehicles, Voters and Candidates

May 13, 2103 in the year of our Lord is Election Day—time of our little lords. This occasion is preceded by a very popular event which is the Summer Christmas. This Summer Christmas is noisier than the December Christmas. Vehicles are mysteriously grown with tongues, and start howling out names of people we see only once in a blue moon and their invisible accomplishments. Truly Blue Fairy took pity on these vans, jeeps, trucks, tricycles and what have you and turned them into music boxes in the meantime. I mean noise boxes rather creating and adding to noise pollution. Worsening this noise pollution made by these noise boxes is the voice pollution of the howling voters. Some howl in gladness for receiving Summer Christmas gifts above their expectations, while others howl in disappointment and dejection for receiving gifts lower than their expectations. The loudest howls are from those who received no gifts at all because some very greedy participants in the Summer Christmas party keep all the gifts for themselves. Last in the roster of the howlers are the howling candidates. But they are surely not the least howlers. Some candidates howl so loud because of triumph. “Here is another opportunity to reign again!” they told themselves. Others howl owing to defeat. “We don’t have any chance to collect honeys again!” they lamented. Those who won obeyed a sign similar to that which appeared to Constantine the Great; By this sign (P), thou shalt conquer. Those who lost are shown the sign similar to that which was shown to King Nebuchadnezzar in a dream: Money, money tekel upharsin (Thy wealth is weighed into the balance and is found wanting, you will lose the game).