February 1, 2024

February 1, 2024: It has been almost a full week now. The young writer from Infanta Sebastian Penamante and I did the short but steep hike up Mount Harap to the Tatlong Krus (Three Crosses) in Paete. It only took ten months of living in Paete for this old tourist to get around to it, thanks to photographer Peps Cadapan for showing me the trailhead and to Jep of the Gitna Cafe for talking about it enough that I finally made the climb. Jep, Mhica, and Ivan of the Gitna Cafe have become my tourist information center here in Paete, haha 😂. They also help me with my pathetic use of the tagalog language, haha 😂.

As an amatuer-tourist-outsider I can only make superficial observations of the Philippines.

Having read an absolutely terribly shallow article on Malate by a so-called "Travel Journalist" who only spent a day or two there, I am thankful to this person, who has taught me how completely wrong surface impressions can be. In fairness, there are many unholy juxtapositions and It is not an easy task for outsiders to step into the shoes of the people who have lived the history, or step into shoes of the responsible journalist, anthropologist and historian.

Contrarily, we all observe the world as this "so called Travel Journalist." It makes writing difficult, as the Artist Ed Badajos once put it "writing isn't hard, it's mpossible." It's this kind of humility "that makes us rather bears the ills we have than fly to others we know not of."

Also a philosophy instructor once put it from his Buddhist perspective "...we're just looking for a higher quality bullshit."

Thankfully poetry exists. 

The mountain is always a good start for the new year. It is the natural reservoir. The source.

Staring  through the forest on the mountainside is like staring at the stars, one looks back through time.

Climbing the switchbacks, we give pause within a pocket between the many forested shoulders of the mountain-the frozen sets of waves which peak and break in geological time. The silence echoing not a white noise, but rather a layered transparent silence. The trees whisper to each other above the baking vibration of insects and birds, not completely unlike the sensation of being under water...Sebastian mentions the word "incanto."

Once at the top, the promised winds did not disappoint, and the ritual selfies dissolved pale beneath a looming omnipresence dosing all into their art trances.

Sunday January 21, 2024

January 21, 2024, Sunday. I went downstairs to throw out some  garbage when beyond the iron gate. I could see only heads and shoulders flickering beyond the iron bars, above them the Santo Nino swaying back and forth. All wore red shirts, many carrying musical instruments, all soaking wet.

It's called "Salibanda" meaning saliw-to dance swaying side to side, and banda-the band. Essentially dancing with the band. Salibanda is what it is called in Paete celebrated every Sunday in January and it coincides with Sinulog in Cebu celebrated on the third Sunday of January. Chronologically after Christmas the newborn infant is celebrated and invoked for the New Year. Thus the Santo Nino.

Water blessings. I followed the tail end of the procession, keeping my distance to stay dry. Just a few meters ahead Barangay #2 Matoong had prepared a blessing. What resembled a long fire hose powered by a motorized pump. Waiting for the processioners to pass so as not hose them directly, buy softly with an arc of water. It was after all, a procession fiesta not a demonstration.

I  stood behind the hose man holding the brass nozzle. He sent the arc of water about twenty meters away and three stories high targeting the center of the Santo Nino and the pole bearers. The water spread as it came down in buckets. It was a lot of water. A lot of collateral blessings. He swivelled his aim scattering the blessing upon the band and those standing by. All celebrating the the downpour in a colorful koatic frenzy of joy.

Saturday January 20, 2024

Saturday January 20, 2024, I wandered beneath a lavender-esque dusk to the small town plaza of Paete, Laguna (a population of around twenty-five thousand.) 

A line of about two dozen Santo Nino's (infant Christ figures) made a colorful cue waiting to enter the Church grounds to receive the blessings before parading them through the town. Blessings that did include a short burst of fireworks.

Each Santo Nino had it's own flavor, some were very small, pushed in carts, some configured like the Ark of the Covenant, the large with many pole bearers at each corner, smaller ones with fewer. One was mounted on a tricycle, a simple typical tricycle and driver. Some of the large elaborately lit ones were followed by portable electricty generators on makeshift wheels appropriately tended.

Each participant's Santo Nino is designed to address a particular blessing desired for the New Year. One appeared dressed as a cook, another a negra dressed in white, and many female or appeared androgenous in royal gowns and crowns of gold where some of these the blessing desired simply put into words and posted. All officially registered beforehand of course.

The pole bearers sway in unison as they walk ("Saliw" dance swaying) rocking the Santo Nino (the child) from side to side. At times there were so many crowded to a pole it resembled the tightly cramped rope bearers of the Black Nazerene-the Nazarenyo in Manila, though nowhere as congested. Although I was told the final Sunday of the month "dadami ang tao" there will be many more people.

As the Santo Ninos passed, they floated like alien spacecraft against the night. Through darkened narrow streets of Paete they mingle with the streetlights, playing with shadows, delightfully flickering, setting the pavement beneath them a glow as well as the faces of the towns folk. The misty air filled by the good wishes of the people behind genuine smiles and solemn conviction.

glow

the palestinian trail of tears exploded like the hiroshima bomb. raining fallout of pervasive tears upon the broken hearts. cutting through the silent memes of sleepless nights and dying dreams, laboring silently staring at a blank wall where the glowing indicesion cannot hide.