Marian procession as typhoon Hagupit threatened

Aftermath of Hagupit in Catbalogan, Samar village.
Photo by Rommel L. Rotor.

Its international name was Filipino for whiplash; thus, “Hagupit” already invoked sharp excruciating pain when this typhoon was forecast to surpass the ferocity of Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan that claimed thousands of lives in Eastern Visayas last year.  Fortunately, when it became “Ruby” inside the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR), it weakened as it made several landfalls starting in Samar.

The alerts on possible flash floods, landslides and storm surges went out as Hagupit/Ruby moved towards the Eastern Visayas.  Most threatened were the Samar provinces. The Public Storm Warning Signal (PSWS) escalated from number 2 to 3 from December 4 to around midnight of the 5th. 

Catarman, Samar folks crossing flood waters.
Photo by Gabriel Nabong Caalim.

Certainly, the victims of Yolanda are still suffering, and many prayers could have been said for the typhoon to dissipate before landfall or digress from its projected path so that they are spared from another traumatic experience. Definitely, government went on full preparation, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Mitigation Council (NDRRMC) mobilized all counterparts in the local governments to avoid a Yolanda scenario, and President Benigno Aquino III warned that he would be unforgiving for any failure unless it’s force majeure.

Morning of the 5th, our friend Charo, fellow history researcher and netizen from Samar, posted that she was packing her archival documents and books in plastic for storage, hoping that no storm surge will reach them. Their house in Catbalogan is about 40 meters from the sea, and they would be evacuating to a safer house far from the coast.

Procession passing by replica of Spanish-era house.

Signal #3 remained hoisted over the Samar provinces on the 6th. Charo posted that the authorities went house to house that morning in their area for forced evacuation.  She said that all 17 evacuation centers of Catbalogan were packed, all hotels fully booked, and the churches and convents were also occupied by evacuees, some coming from Borongan town and the islets of Rama, Cinco, Bagongon,Darahuwat, Basiao, Mahaba and other coastal barangays as early as Friday. According to her, even in Dolores, Eastern Samar, where landfall was expected that evening, people from the islets fronting the town were also in the evacuation centers.

For sure, residents of Metro Manila monitored Hagupit/Ruby through the PAGASA Weather Bulletins, social media postings and the TV weather reports. 

The typhoon was hardly felt on the 6th.  Even then, many prayers could have been said for the protection of communities under siege by the fierce winds and heavy rains of Hagupit/Ruby. It can be said that the Marian devotees included pleadings that the procession of the 7th honoring the  Blessed Virgin Mary in Intramuros, Manila be not spoiled by rains.

Hooded Marian procession participants.

On Sunday, December 7, signal number 3 over the Samar provinces reduced to #2 late in the afternoon when Hagupit hit Masbate.  

Netizens posted that the Catbalogan City DRRMC and Coast Guard confirmed that there was no storm surge in the city, that there was flooding but this was caused by the extremely heavy rains. The posts also identified coastal and island municipalities of Samar that were hit hard: Talalora, Sta. Rita, Villareal, Zumarraga and Daram where majority of houses were completely damaged. 

From our friends Facebook posts, we learned that the small town of Dolores survived the biggest typhoon so far that had hit the area although there were three casualties. The mayor of Daram had a more detailed report from 46 barangays of what had been washed out or partially/totally destroyed: farms, houses, schools, wharves, motorized boats and bancas, but there were no casualties.

Marian procession participants.

Metro Manila had gloomy skies the whole of Sunday, but no rains fell. With much rejoicing, pomp and ceremony, did the grand procession of around 90 icons and statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary went around Intramuros in celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Concepcion. 

Undaunted by the prospect of rains, thousands of Marian devotees joined the procession, many of them accompanying the popular images of the Nuestra Señora (Our Lady) with various titles from provincial towns like the Pilar of Imus, Cavite; Aranzazu of San Mateo, Rizal; Fátima of Valenzuela, Bulacan;  Ina Poon Bato of Botolan. Zambales; Divina Pastora and Soledad, both from Nueva Ecija; Salambao from Obando City, Soledad de Porta Vaga, Merced and Remedios, both from Pampanga, Casaysay from Lipa, Batangas, among many others. There were brass bands like the Obando and Pakil town bands playing anthems associated with particular icons.

It’s the large delegation from Pakil, Laguna, seemingly almost all the Catholics of the town, which has captured our admiration in the past years. Just as they do in their town during her fiesta in September, they come to sing and dance the turumba on the streets of Intramuros in honor of their Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows).

According to Pakil folklore, the first turumba dates back to 1788, and the term is derived from “natumba sa laki ng tuwa,” meaning rolling down from joy.  The first two lines of the turumba song goes:  “Turumba, turumba Mariangga, Matuwa’t tayo’y magsaya / Sumayaw sa tu-turumba, Puri sa Birheng Maria (Singing and dancing to honor the Virgin Mary).”

Five of around 90 Marian images from different parts of Luzon.

The rains came to Metro Manila on Monday, 8th December; signal number #2 was raised in the morning but reduced to #1 before midnight. The rain was moderate, and there were no accompanying gusty winds.  Tuesday, 9th December, was still wet but Hagupit/Ruby was already moving out to the West Philippine Sea.

We read from Facebook posts of the Catbalogan City mayor's post-Hagupit/Ruby statement. “Another miracle!", she said, We survived Yolanda, we survived Glenda and now we survived Ruby!”  She spoke of the city as a ship that has finally docked after a very rough journey. As ship captain, she said, she was very much fortunate and thankful that her passengers were very cooperative during that night sailing.

She could very well be speaking for all the villages, towns and cities that suffered heavily from Hagupit. They’re starting all over again, picking up the pieces with assistance from government and non-government organizations, from friends and town mates here and abroad.

No rains fell on the jubilant devotees of Mary who lit candles, sang or dance in her honor during the procession around Intramuros.

Enjoying a nostalgic kalesa ride around Old Manila and in Ilocos and Cagayan cities

Note:  This photo essay appeared in the 28 Mar-03 Apr 2014 issue of FilAm Star, "the newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America."  This author/blogger is the Special News/Photo Correspondent in the Philippines of the said paper.

Before he was declared National Artist for Music and Literature, I had a couple of memorable conversations with popular composer and lyricist Levi Celerio (1910-2002), during his breaks from playing the piano during lunch hours at one of the restaurants on Morato Ave.  He regaled me with anecdotes about his life as a music man and I liked it when he’d play a tune with a leaf, a feat that had earned him a citation in the Guinness book of records. He easily comes to mind when I see horse-drawn vehicles of various structural designs plying around Rizal Park and Intramuros. He penned the lyrics of the popular song Kalesa that our choral ambassadors bring to the ears of overseas Pinoy during their concert tours abroad.

In this musical tribute, Celerio endowed the kalesa with nationalistic and romantic attributes. The kalesa, he wrote, has its own charm and beauty to appreciate; and it is a comfortable pambayang sasakyan (public transport).  In this song, he recalled kalesa rides that his generation and their loved ones took when they went out in the evening.

 “The horse is not a problem,” Sylvia La Torre continues to sing in Pilipino from her records, “molasses and grass are enough to make the vehicle run at comfortable speed, and there’s no need for gasoline.” Choirs echo this ecological message from YouTube videos of their choreographed renditions of the song.  

The cochero (kutsero) in Metro Manila no longer goes out to harvest the green grass to feed his horse.  Grass supplies are sold by zacate gatherers from the nearby provinces like Laguna.   

The song evokes historical memories.  “Kalesa ay panghatid tuwina/Nang panahon nina Maria Clara/ Mga bayani nitong bayan / Sa kalesa idinuduyan;” the country’s heroes swayed with it when they rode the horse-drawn carriage during the Spanish colonial times.

During the 19th century, it was the carruaje (karwahe) that plied the provincial highways.  To ensure public transportation between towns in Zambales, for example, the provincial civil government conducted tenders for carruajes de alquiler (carriages for hire) among the big businessmen of those times.  Artist Jose Honorato Lozano included a painting of this carriage drawn by two horses with passengers in colorful attires in his 1847 album of Philippine views and costumes.

The guidebooks for American and other foreign visitors in the early 1900’s contained information on public vehicles that they could use in visiting places around Manila.  Kemlein’s handbook of 1908 described three classes:  carruajes drawn by two horses; the quilez drawn by one horse and can seat four people; and the carromatas drawn by one horse and can accommodate two people.  Another source described a carruaje as being four-wheeled, and the rest have two wheels.

The local government of that period fixed the fare rate for each public carriage calibrated according to the number of passengers (one up to four) and time of use (during the first half or first hour plus the succeeding hours).   The brackets for “carriage for two horses” were more expensive than those of the “calesa, carromata, quilez or other vehicle for one horse”.  A lone passenger or a pair paid 50 centavos for a 30-minute ride in a carruaje, for example, but cheaper at 30 centavos in a calesa (kalesa).

Travellers were warned of cocheros or drivers who often demanded excessive fees, and were advised to insist on paying the regulated fare.  Times apparently have not changed.  Today, many taxi passengers often report of similar encounters with cab drivers who want to negotiate the price instead of the metered fare.

The carretela (karetela) was the term for the kalesa in my town when I was growing up.  It was described in a 1926 Hispanic-Tagalog dictionary as two-wheeled with seats for four.  The cheaper version of this carriage, according to another source, is the lighter and “box-like” carromata.

Long before lahar came down from Pinatubo, high school boys like us learned how to ride a horse from the cocheros of our town.  If one was an officer of the Preparatory Military Training corps of cadets, he led his platoon or company in the fiesta parade on horseback.   Horses were borrowed or hired from the karetela owners because the cocheros do not work during the town fiesta.

The horse-drawn vehicle is still very much around today when the jeepney/taxicab/tricycle drivers have become the kings of the road, a title held by the cochero for a very long time, from as far back as the Spanish colonial times until some years after the Second World War.

During my journeys in northern Luzon, I saw the kalesa plying the streets of Tuguegarao, Laoag and Vigan.  Each time I go to the archives on Kalaw St. or on Arzobispo St., I see plenty of variations of the traditional horse-drawn carriages bringing tourists around Luneta, Intramuros and Fort Santiago.

The Tuguegarao carriage has been dubbed the Ibanag kalesa.  It is made of wood and galvanized iron sheets, and has a pair of rubber wheels, similar to those of a motorcycle.  It can seat as many as eight persons. While there are jeepneys and tricycles crowding on the streets, many residents apparently prefer taking the kalesa when they do business around the city. I learned that tourists can take the kalesa to visit the city’s attractions at very affordable fare, around Php50-100 (a little over USD 1-2), almost the cost of one serving of their noodle delicacy called batil patong.

The Laoag kalesa is also used for tourism and public transportation. Like in all places today, it adds to the traffic of jeepneys and tricycles on town and city streets.   According to a traveller’s report, short rides cost around PhP10, well below a dollar.

In Vigan, only the kalesa is allowed to traverse Crisologo St., the cobbled heritage thoroughfare hemmed on both sides by antique houses. It competes with the tricycle in bringing tourists to other sites of interest quite far from the city proper like the pottery making factory, loom weaving houses and the Baluarte, a private zoo.  The kalesa

fee is fixed at PhP 150 (roughly, USD 4) per hour. 

For sightseeing around Fort Santiago, Intramuros and Rizal Park or Luneta, one can pick the type of kalesa from among the four-wheeled and two-wheeled variations parked by the entrance of the Fort or the standard karetelas in front of the recently reconstructed Ayuntamiento, left of Plaza Roma and opposite the Palacio de Gobernador. The tour fee ranges from PhP250 to PhP300 (about USD6-7) for 30 minutes.
 
In Chinatown in Binondo and around Divisoria in Tondo, the kalesa remains the vehicle of commerce for many in transporting goods and marketing, and the preferred conveyance of stall owners and residents there.  

Touristic kalesa rides in Tuguegarao, Laoag and Vigan, and around Intramuros are not expensive compared to the price one pays for a horse-drawn carriage tour of Central Park in New York City.  A walk-up ride there costs USD50 for a maximum of 20 minutes with additional fees for extra ten minutes.
 

Horse-drawn vehicular transport gets a thumbs-up from green advocates. These vehicles are environment-friendly since no pollutants are emitted when cocheros drive passengers around a town or city.  Horse-y solid wastes are very well managed through the use of portable toilets hang by the rear of the animals although they may take a leak anywhere, which explains the whiff of urine along the usual kalesa routes. 

Kalesas are arguably eco-friendly alternatives to petroleum fuel guzzlers and polluters that would contribute greatly in reducing the carbon print of the Philippines in the worldwide environmental map.  Definitely, they can spell more fun in a nostalgic balikbayan trip of overseas Pinoys to their native land.

2012: Our Year of the Kalesa/Karitela

Kalesas take a break on UN Avenue, Manila to wash the carriages and feed the horses.

During our journeys in northern Luzon this year, we saw the kalesa (or the popular karitela among Ilocanos) still plying the streets of Vigan, Laoag and Tuguegarao.  While doing historical research at the National Archives on Kalaw and at the Archdiocesan Archives on Arzobispo in Manila, we also saw plenty of them bringing tourists around the Luneta/Rizal Park, Intramuros and Fort Santiago with their variations from the traditional kalesa/karitela box design making them very interesting photo subjects.

Thus, in our personal timeline, we were inclined to tag 2012 as our Year of the Kalesa/Karitela.  This is also in line with our green advocacy, this horse-drawn transport vehicle being environment-friendly because no pollutants are emitted as the cocheros drive passengers down the town or city streets.  We noted that horse-y solid wastes are very well  managed through the use of portable cloth toilets hang by the rear of the horses.

Northern Luzon kalesas.  The Vigan kalesas (top left) cater to tourists mostly while the Tuguegarao type with rubber tires provides an alternative to tricycles for public transport.  The Laoag karitela is both for tourism and public transport.

Some digression:  kalesa and karitela are not indigenous Pinoy terms.  These are our derivatives of the Spanish words calesa (feminine form of cales), a 'two-wheeled calash, chaise,' and carretela, also a calash or stagecoach.  For that matter, kariton, for the carabao or cow drawn vehicle, is not also native being derived from the Spanish carreton, a cart.

The kalesas that ply around Intramuros and Fort Santiago are of different make and design. The one at bottom right has its sides made of recycled capiz windows.

Of course, there's also the carruaje,horse-drawn carriage, that one associates with royalty or the noble classes depicted in European period movies.  It's the carriage for those who want leisurely rides around Central Park in New York, New York.  In our home province Zambales these days, the carruaje is the most expensive alternative to the funeral limousine for the last mile of a dearly departed one to the memorial park.

In our boyhood, the karitela driver (kutsero) was king of the road.  Those who lived in the town proper walked to school, plaza, church and market.  The karitela was for trips to the barrios outside town.  The young girls in our family often joined an aunt on board a karitela looking for a pig to buy and butcher for her Sunday market stall.   In high school, we boys who were PMT (Phil. Military Training) cadet officers did not find it difficult to find a horse to ride on for the town fiesta parade.  The fiesta day was 'off' day for karitelas but not for horses we either hired or borrowed for the parade.

Before the second world war, the jeepney wasn't yet a Pinoy innovation.  'Peacetime' generations moved around their towns and cities using the horse drawn vehicle. In the YouTube video (below) from PhilClassic on the popular tune Kalesa composed by A. del Rosario and performed by the Juan Silos, Jr. rondalla, we can see that the the traffic of old Manila comprised these horse drawn vehicles.  In his original lyrics, superimposed on the video, national artist Levi Celerio endowed the kalesa with nationalistic and romantic attributes.

Going farther back to the 19th century, it was the carruaje that plied the provincial carreteras or highways.  To ensure public transportation between towns in Zambales, for example, the provincial civil government conducted tenders for carruajes de alquiler [carriages for hire] among the big businessmen of those times.

One of the dibujos of Jose Honorato Lozano in his album Vistas de las islas Filipinas y trajes de sus habitantes (1847), which can be found at the Biblioteca Nacional de España, is an open carruage [sic] de alquiler drawn by two horses with passengers in colorful costumes.

Dibujo DIB158425 by Jose Honorato Lozano (1847) available online from the Biblioteca Digital Hispanica.

We'd like to think that bringing back the kalesa / karetela in barangays and towns, and in touristic sites, to provide eco-friendly alternatives to petroleum fuel guzzlers and polluters would greatly reduce the carbon print of the Philippines in the worldwide environmental map.
 

References:

Cassell's Spanish English English-Spanish Dictionary. (1978).  Gooch, Anthony & Garcia de Paredes, Angel, Rev.  New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Lozano, Jose Honorato. (1847). Vistas de las islas Filipinas y trajes de sus habitantes. Retrieved from the Biblioteca Digital Hispanica of the Biblioteca Nacional de España at 
http://bibliotecadigitalhispanica.bne.es/view/action/nmets.do?DOCCHOICE=3808315.xml&dvs=1356712296422~678&locale=en_US&search_terms=&adjacency=&VIEWER_URL=/view/action/nmets.do?&DELIVERY_RULE_ID=4&usePid1=true&usePid2=true

Philclassic video. Kalesa.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYtmutNId4w&feature=player_detailpage

Marian Procession in Intramuros, Then & Now

Usually by the end week of November, an item appears in the papers about a Marian procession that would start from the Manila Cathedral to celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which in the Roman church calendar falls on the 8th of December.  As far as we know, the procession is a moveable event, usually held on a Sunday before the feast day unless this itself falls on a weekend.

We've done photo shoots of the October La Naval de Manila in previous years, but this Marian event has always skipped our mind until last Sunday's. 

The procession was announced to start at four o'clock in the afternoon but we were suddenly called to a little business meeting in Makati around that time.  We were two hours late but with around eighty images of the Virgin Mary in procession, we suspected that we could still catch up with quite a number of carrozas or floats to capture with our digital camera.

At the Muralla gate near Letran College at around six-thirty, people were still waiting for half of the procession--forty six more carrozas, according to the police detailed there.  We walked to the Cathedral, and yes, the first batch of floats were already parked on the streets nearby, the images still lit up to the delight of camera bugs like us. 

We walked back to Muralla to wait for the other half of the procession.  We thought it would be great to shoot atop the old walls. We surmised that the delay could be due to traffic somewhere on Roxas Blvd up to the Intramuros re-entry point.  We walked toward the gate near Mapua and fronting City Hall hoping to meet the procession, but there were only four floats we saw, one of them attended to by a big costumed and dancing contingent from Orani, Bataan. We didn't wait for the rest anymore.

We don't know if the procession honoring the Immaculada Concepcion, the patroness of the Manila Cathedral, went as far as the Luneta during the Spanish regime, which was the promenade of city folks at sundown either on foot on in their carriages.

But there's an amusing vignette of the Marian procession of 1894--about quarrels--from Joseph Earle Stevens, "an ex-resident of Manila," who wrote about it in his Yesterdays in the Philippines (1899).  We deduced it was the feast of the Immaculate Conception because, first, it was in his notes between November 13 and December 23, 1894, and second, he was talking about images of the Virgin Mary:

"Last night there occurred another one of those religious torchlight processions which are so common in the streets of Old Manila. It started after sunset, inside the city walls, from a big church brightly illuminated from top to bottom with small candle-cups that gave it the appearance of a great sugar palace. The procession consisted of many richly decorated floats, containing life-size figures of saints and apostles dressed in garments of gold and purple and borne along by sweating coolies, who staggered underneath a draping that shielded from view all save their lower limbs and naked feet. The larger floats were covered with dozens of candelabra and guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets. Other rolling floats of smaller magnitude were pulled along by little children in white gowns, while troops of old maids, young maids, and Spanish women marched before and behind, dressed in black and carrying candles. The black mantillas which fell gracefully from the heads of many of the torch-bearers gave their faces a look of saint-like grace, except at such times as the evening breeze made the candle-grease refractory, and one might easily have imagined himself a spectator at a celebration in Seville. 

"Many bands all playing different tunes in different times and keys, rows of hard-faced, fat-stomached priests trying to look religious but failing completely to do so, and five hundred small boys, who, like ours at home, formed a sort of rear guard to the solemnities, all went to make up the peculiar performance. The whole long affair started from the church, wound through the narrow streets, and finally brought up at the church again, where it was saluted by fireworks and ringing of bells.

"In the balconies of the houses that almost overhung the route were smiling crowds of lookers-on, and Roman candles and Bengola lights added impressiveness to the scene, or dropped their sparks on the garments of those promenading below. As the various images of the Virgin Mary and the Descent from the Cross passed by, everyone took off his hat and appeared deeply impressed with religious feeling. After the carriers of the floats had put down for good their expensive burdens in the vestry of the church, a few liquid refreshments easily started them quarrelling as to the merits of their respective displays. One set claimed that their Descent from the Cross was more life-like than that carried by their rivals, and they almost came to blows over which of the Virgin Marys wore the finest clothes. "  

The last part tells us that there were several privately owned Descent from the Cross and Virgin Mary images.  In this 2009 procession, which of the Marys are at least a century old, and Stevens saw in 1894?

Troubles brewed over the Lady's couture?  How about the crowns? Were they as awesomely large and possibly heavy due to adornments as the ones we saw and photographed last Sunday?

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Note:  A group called the Cofradia de la Inmaculada Concepcion organizes the annual Marian procession, which incepted in December 1979 with 29 images.  This would be the 30th event since then.

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