Fiesta celebration, 1877

Religious events such as fiestas have largely been unchanged in the last 150 years. The fan-fare that usually attends the annual feast in honor of a patron saint remains, and this is due to the fact that over a century of dynamic practices has become ingrained in tradition.

Anywhere you go, whenever there is a Catholic feast venerating a patron saint, the celebration starts on the eve of the feast. People in the countryside troop to the village in the evening to start the drinking spree, others attend the baylihan (Spanish bailar). When the day is done, you start hearing the pigs in stress response as they are led to the abattoir even before day-break.

In a letter to his Mission Superior, Jesuit priest Fr. Santiago Puntas, a Spaniard, had a parallel experience when he traveled from Davao to Sigaboy, Davao Oriental, to celebrate the octave of St. Francis Xavier, the patron of the place. He was warmly met by residents, and because it was already evening, the village was glowingly set alight as the welcomers recited incantations. The crescendo of the festivity would appreciate up to the fiesta day, ang adlaw sa pangilin.

“As usual,” Puntas wrote, “they sang the gozos (i.e., laudatory canticles) to welcome me. The place was brightly lit, for we arrived at night. On landing, right on the shore we immediately decided when to observe the feast. They scheduled it on the 13th of the month. The feast was solemnized with all the pomp and solemnity usually among these people, like the moro-moro dances, the schoolgirls’ dances, the fireworks, and others that enliven these infants of 30 years. Nor was there missing a sight to encourage and console the missionary… while the procession passed by with our apostolic saint’s image carried on a moving platform.”

The late Jesuit historian Fr. Jose Arcillas explained the old welcome when greeting visiting priests was ‘for the people to come together at the landing place, and, waving pennants, receive, and escort him to the chapel (if any) to recite some prayers together.’

At a time when there were only torches to light the village and visitors had to trek distances negotiating trails to reach their remote domiciles, every feast was more than just a festivity. Anticipating the next year’s fiesta, families grow hogs to feed visitors in the next fiesta cycle and plant crops to share the bountiful harvest with visiting relatives and friends.

It is interesting to note the 1877 account by Fr. Puntas mentions fireworks as part of the fiesta spectacle. Though pyrotechnics have Chinese provenance, it was Spain that introduced us to the bangers. Reminding us of this legacy is the popular reventador or firecrackers.

Then and now, differences stand out in the way fiesta revelries are done. Except in rural communities, the procession of saintly icons now happens rarely and occurs chiefly in very places. Cultural dances, banquets, indigenous games, cockfights, and drinking bouts still persist to this day, with carnival rides, karaoke contests, freestyle dances, ballgames, and take-out foods thrown into the mix. Ruined by today’s greed is the solemnity that defined the feast of saints in the past.

Comparably, the Filipino fiesta is the spitting image of its Spanish influence;

“Every single city, town and village… celebrates its own unique fiesta and it’s the smaller, local festivals that can prove just as rewarding to the visitor… The whole village heads out to a local hillside where a shrine to the village’s patron saint stands. Everyone is equipped with chairs, tables, food and wine and huge pots are put on open fires where ‘bacalao con patatas’ (cod and potatoes) is prepared for the whole village. By late afternoon all the villagers have returned to the bars which remain packed throughout the night.” (Antonio V. Figueroa)