Celebrating with Tondo folks the fiesta of their Sto. Niño

Note:  A slightly different version of this photo essay was published in the 24-30 Jan 2014 issue of the weekly FilAm Star ("The newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America")."  The blogger is the Special Photo/News Correspondent of the said weekly, which is based in San Francisco, CA.

 

The Sto. Niño de Tondo (center) surrounded by other Child Jesus images in various costumes.

 
January in the year of iconic Roman Catholic folk rituals and traditions opens with two faces:  that of the suffering Nazarene during the fiesta of Quiapo, Manila on the ninth day of the month, and that of the innocent Child Jesus during the Sto. Niño festivals on the third Sunday held in many towns and cities nationwide,  the most popular being the Sinulog (Pit, Senyor!) of Cebu City  and the Ati-Atihan (Hala, Bira!) of Kalibo, both in the Visayas.   The Ati carnival, in fact, did not start as a folk religious festival but more of a commemorative celebration of a popular lore - the barter of Panay between the Bornean datus and the native Atis before the Spaniards arrived. There’s a fourth crowd-drawer, the Dinagyang of Iloilo, but this one is held on the fourth Sunday.

The original Sto. Niño image in residence at the Cebu cathedral reminds that Christianized Philippines will be 500 years old in 2021.  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) prepared a “nine-year journey for the new evangelization”, which started last year, for the fifth centenary of the conversion of Rajah Humabon, Rajah Kolambu and 400 other Filipinos.    

Devotees carry their own images during the fiesta.

According to Pigafetta , the queen of Cebu, after her baptism as Johanna, was shown the images of Our Lady, the Child Jesus and a cross.  She expressed interest to keep the Child Jesus to replace her idols, and Magellan gave it to her on 14 April 1521.  It is believed that this was the same image that the Mexican soldiers of Legazpi found in one of the abandoned houses when they arrived in Cebu on 27 April 1565.

Replicate copies of that image are in the Kalibo and Iloilo churches, but with regard to the festivals, the Ati-Atihan was the original street dancing celebration centuries before Dinagyang and Sinulog festivals were organized as tourist attractions in 1967 and1981, respectively.

The tricycle procession replaced the fluvial of old.

The proletarian district of Tondo of Manila city also celebrates the feast of their Sto. Niño on the third Sunday (Viva El Sto. Niño!).  

For the first time after so many years, we visited Tondo to witness their fiesta.   We took the Divisoria route, the church being four blocks from Claro M. Recto through Ilaya Street, hemmed on both sides by market stalls.

Procession scenes.

There used to be a fluvial procession at Manila Bay on the eve of the fiesta.  Old timers remember that the image was borne through the streets of the district, accompanied by a dancing crowd to North Harbor where it was mounted on a pagoda.  Fishing boats escorted the pagoda as it sailed along the bay.

Multitude of Child Jesus images during the procession around Tondo.

The fluvial procesion was stopped in 1983. What we witnessed last Sunday was the morning procession of the Sto. Niño de Tondo on a carriage adorned by loaves of bread and flowers, followed by a legion of similar images clad in various costumes mounted on tricycles and other vehicles, or carried by young and old, male and female devotees.  There were two processions through all the barangays of the district, one in the afternoon of the eve of the fiesta, and the other after the early morning mass celebrated by Cardinal Antonio Tagle on the feast day.

Gone too is the street dancing that the late National Artist Nick Joaquin described as being performed by women in pastora hats or dressed like katipuneras in white kamiseta and red saya.  There was dancing called lakbayaw for two hours in front of the church in the morning of Saturday, but it was only for show.

Viva El Sto. Niño!

Amid the multitude of devotees during the fiesta of the Nazareno 2014

Note:  A slightly different version of this photo essay was published in the 17-23 Jan 2014 issue of the weekly FilAm Star ("The newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America") with the title "Amid the legions of devotees during the fiesta of Nazareno."  The blogger is the Special Photo/News Correspondent of the said weekly, which is based in San Francisco, CA.

The scramble to the top of the andas.

The feast of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo is not a moveable feast. The 9th of January is a special day that many devotees fix their minds and hearts on even before fireworks lit up the sky on New Year’s Eve. That’s because the nine-day novena masses for the revered Poong Hesus Nazareno begin right on the 31st of December.

The Hijos de Nazareno guarding the Nazareno.

The subject of intense devotion is the wooden life-size sculpture of Jesus Christ carrying a cross that Augustinian friars brought to Manila from Mexico in 1607.  According to popular lore, it got its dark color after getting partly burned when the galleon carrying it caught fire.

This is the third year that I followed the translacion (procession) at day time. I never got to see the completion of the journey from the Quirino Grandstand to the Basilica Minore of Quiapo at long past midnight. I learned that the Nazareno got back to the shrine past one o’clock Friday morning, and that was faster than last year’s 22 hours.

I did not also witness the revival of the dungaw (Tagalog term for looking at) tradition at the Plaza del Carmen by the Basilica Minore of San Sebastian, which used to be part of the translacion until the early 1900s .  The Recollect priests brought out the image of Our Lady of Carmel, which was also from Mexico and as old as the Nazarene, to re-enact the meeting of Mary and her son on his way to his crucifixion.  This is one reason why the procession route was longer this year.

The Nazareno and thousands of devotees crossing the Jones Bridge

The other reason was that the Nazareno had to cross the Pasig River via the Jones Bridge since the customary McArthur Bridge had been found to be structurally unsafe for carrying a huge crowd, the last estimate being around 3 million.  In fact, Coast Guard emergency units were on the alert and deployed below the bridge as the image and the multitude of devotees passed through.

I was immersed in the thick of mostly barefoot male and female devotees at several points on the Taft Avenue to Jones Bridge leg of the procession. They were either resting before they get back again into the frenzy of grabbing the thick manila rope that pulls the andas (carriage), or of climbing onto the carriage so that they can touch the image. I was amazed at the audacity of young women in jeans who attempted the climb that’s dominated by male devotees.  From my perch on the barrier at the foot of the Jones on the Escolta side, I saw one girl getting stepped on by a male climber as she lost her grip and slid down. I saw her next on a stretcher being carried to the first-aid station located below my perch.

The ones on top of the carriage are called Hijos de Nazareno (sons of the Nazarene) wearing yellow shirts whose duty it is to protect the image during the procession.  Devotees toss to them their hand towels to be wiped on the image, but sometimes they do not get these back.  One brother who shared my perch on Jones Bridge was telling me he has lost three towels already.  It is best, he said, if the hijo saw you throw the towel so he’d know where to fling it back.  Other hijos are deployed around the carriage.  Aside from providing further security to the image, they also offer their shoulders to step on for those who want to climb and touch the Nazareno.

Rope bearers or namamasan.

On this day, the devotees call everyone kapatid (brother or sister).  They’re not only helpful to one another but to spectators like me as well. A kapatid who helps pull the rope is called a namamasan. When this brother raises his hand, this means he already needs help, and non-pullers take him away from the dense frenzied wave of rope bearers..

During this year’s commemoration, zealous devotion went beyond the customary expressions of walking barefoot, waving white towels while shouting ‘Viva, Nazareno’, jostling to get to the ropes, and striving by all means to touch the image on the carriage.

Before Cardinal Antonio Tagle finished celebrating the early morning Mass at the Luneta, overzealous devotees broke through the barricades, climbed the stage, and seized the image to mount on the carriage so that the procession can begin.  The clergy could not do anything to stop the mob. The Cardinal had to finish the Mass at the backstage.  That extreme behavior again raised the issues of idolatry, fanaticism, superstition, and the apparent lack of authentic religious formation among many of the Nazareno devotees. 

Other devotos.

I was at the evening mass at the Quirino Grandstand the night before, the eve of the fiesta, also celebrated by the Cardinal.  The crowd of devotees encamped around the Luneta paid solemn attention to the rites, and observed decorum when communion and the anointment with holy oil were administered through the wire fence.  The long line of devotees that snaked several times from the area across the Rizal monument to the back of the grandstand where they can kiss the foot of the Nazareno was very orderly. 

There are of course many others who went to the Basilica Minore in Quiapo, the vigil at the Luneta and during the translacion and celebrated the feast of the Nazarene in their own somber acts of thanksgiving for miracles brought into their lives, and of unwavering faith that he will answer their prayers for themselves or their loved ones. 

This reminds that the translacion of the old days were solemn rites.  Through his painting of the procession of 1847, Jose Honorato Lozano tells us that the crowd at the Quiapo church square (now the Plaza Miranda) was big but orderly.  Even then the Black Nazarene was mounted on the andas with the clergy following the carriage under a canopy, and a brass band provided the processional music.

His painting tells us that the women in the procession wore black mantles or veils and carried lighted candles.  Lozano does not say how the men dress up for this fiesta but he says that generally the men wear their shirts over their trousers.   The painting suggests the men pulled the ropes, or they carried the andas on their shoulders.

While I saw several devotees with lighted candles during this year’s procession, the women did not have black mantles or veils anymore, and most, just like the male devotees, were  barefoot, and wore pants or shorts and t-shirts of yellow or maroon, colors associated with the Poong Hesus Nazareno of Quiapo. 

Getting named Melchor/a, Gaspar/a, or Baltazar/a in old Paoay, Ilocos Norte

Melchora Aquino turned 201 yesterday.  According to her biographies, she was born on 06 January 1812.  In the old church calendar, that date was the feast of the Three Kings, or the Epiphany. It has become a moveable feast, but until today, the Spanish community still commemorates the visit of the magi Melchor, Gaspar and Balthazar (though there are no three kings in the nativity story) to the manger in Bethlehem.

In the popular song, 06 January is the 12th day of Christmas represented by "12 drummers drumming," which has nothing to do with the magi, but which stand for the "12 points of doctrine in the Apostles' Creed" (Richert).

In my research on the history of our Ilocano town, San Narciso in Zambales province, and on the genealogy of the town folks whose forefathers were migrants from Paoay, Ilocos Sur, I found out from the baptismal records of the San Agustin church there (in microfilm at the LDS Family History Center on Temple Drive, Quezon City) that children acquired their names on their baptismal day during the 1800s.

Each day had its own set name or names.  The female name derived from the male; hence, Melchor/Melchora, Gaspar/Gaspara and Baltzar/Baltazara on 06 January.  The records show that these "magi'-cal names were also used on baptismal days close to that date.

Part of baptismal record of 06 Jan 1813, Wednesday showing baptism of Balthazar and Melchora.

These are four pages of the baptismal records of 06 Jan 1816, Sunday  All the babies were either Balthazar or Balthazara.

These pages of the 10 Jan 1818, Tuesday, baptismal records had babies baptized as Melchor or Melchora.

Unless I see the baptismal record of Melchora Aquino, I will always think that she was baptized on 06 January 1812.  Being the birth record itself, that church document would tell me how many days old she was on her baptism from which I'll deduce her birth date.


References.

• Film No.1214241. Bautismos 1812-1823. Registros parroquiales,1758-1979 of the Catholic Church. Conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo (Paoay). Family History Center, Church of Latter Day Saints, Temple Drive, Quezon City.

• Richert, Scott. P. (n.d.).  What are the Twelve Days of Christmas? Myths and Reality.  Catholicism about.com. Retrieved from http://catholicism.about.com/od/Christmas/tp/What-Are-The-Twelve-Days-Of-Christmas.htm

Pilipinas Christmas 2013

When we left Manila for the old hometown on Monday, 16^th of December, people were on their way to church for the first simbang gabi, which is not really an evening mass but properly the misa de gallo when the roosters crow at dawn. On our way back early evening, we passed by churches celebrating truly simbang gabi probably for those who failed to join the early morning service.  Thus began the traditional nine-day devotional masses to culminate with what used to be the midnight mass of Christmas eve.

History tells us that the dawn masses were set up during the Spanish colonial times for the farmers who began toiling the croplands before sunrise.  When we were young in the province, getting up early for the mass was one great effort; the joy came when we went around town with the church choir serenading parish folks with local carols and Spanish villancicos after the mass.  As kid, our mother enticed us to go with them to the midnight mass so that we can see the “walking star,” actually a big lighted five-pointed star parol rolling down the rope from the choir loft to the belen at one side of the altar with all the church lights turned off.  Our father who was not a churchgoer attended the dawn masses though before boarding the commuter bus to his work at the U.S. naval base in Subic an hour away. 

We learned parol making when we were in primary school using bamboo strips to form the star, covering this with Japanese paper or colored cellophane, and from two star tips, we hang paper “tails”. The last time we fashioned star parols was at the Manila Center on Mission St. in San Francisco, CA for the first Parol Lantern Festival there in December 2003.

Through the years, the parol has morphed from the five-point pattern to various decorative structures associated with Christmas.  Houses, stores, town and city halls, and town and city streets brighten up with lighted parols in the evening. We treasured a smaller version of the San Fernando, Pampanga parol for several seasons until the colored wrapping started to fade. Of course, San Fernando glows with giant lanterns skilfully crafted by barangay artisans to dazzle spectators with a display of rhythmic changing of lighted colorful patterns. 

 

As an alumnus of the University of the Philippines, one knows that Christmas vacation is coming when a big white star parol glows behind the Oblation in the Diliman campus in the evening. The buzz starts for the much-awaited lantern parade held during the last week of classes when the faculty and students of different colleges and members of campus organizations carry lanterns that reflect the year's theme.  This year, it was “Maalab na Serbisyo Publiko ng Mapagkalingang Kampus” dedicated to the victims of typhoon Yolanda.  The lanterns were made of relief goods like T-shirts, slippers, canned goods, etc. all of which were collected for eventual distribution in the calamity areas. The College of Fine Arts contingent do not compete for 'bests' of several categories, they simply provide the climax of the event.  This year their lanterns were reflective of the cultural color of various indigenous peoples of the country.  

A College of Fine Arts lantern: a mythical bird.

One UP Diliman annual tradition we have missed since after graduation is the free annual Handel’s Messiah concert at the university theatre.  A good friend saved us from the no-ticket line last week when she came out of the theatre with a spare seating ticket.  It was labelled “a Christmas benefit concert for the calamity victims” and had the students who were relocated from the Tacloban campus to Diliman as special guests.  

For the first time, choral groups from Diliman, UP Manila and UP Los Baños came together for the Messian concert.  There were 270 voices all in all.  They did a choral rendition of “Kilos, Iskolar”, a hymn composed by Vernie de la Peña and lyrics by poet Reuel Aguila, which calls UP students and alumni to help rehabilitate the nation after the calamities.

We had an incidental Christmas treat at the Archdiocesan Archives in Intramuros before the last weekend.  It was the launching of the annual display of the belen collection of Fr. Genaro Diwa.  The manger scenes on exhibit vary in size and style, and definitely, they are far from the depiction done by St. Francis of Assisi who did the first one with a live ox and ass in Greccio in 1223. 

The Filipino belens are eye-catching in terms of costumes and interpretations.  One incorporates the Three Kings in Moro, Igorot and barong tagalog costumes.  Another has visitors around the manger representing various indigenous groups.  Another belen had us chuckling because there’s a group making lechon beside the manger scene.

The last one reminds that Philippine Christmas is one seasonal food trip for families and clans.  It is not unusual, for example, to see families in some communities coming out of the church during dawn masses to head straight for stalls selling hot bibingka (rice cakes) or puto bumbong for a breakfast of native fare.  Then comes the first feast, which is the noche buena held after the midnight mass of Christmas eve.  The big one is on Christmas Day when families in grand happy reunion gather around a festive lunch with a lechon as centerpiece usually.

One would think that the long Pilipinas Christmas that starts with the first –ber month of the year, September, ends on Christmas Day.  To the religious, it still extends to the feast of the Epiphany, the 12^th day of Christmas, according to the popular song, which for many years was fixed on the 6^th of January.  Until now, three men of one barangay in our town costumed as the Three Kings Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar lead the parade highlighting their fiesta on this day.

Somber Christmas celebration during the Spanish colonial times

From a few documents we've come across at the National Archives and the Archdiocesan Archives of Manila, it appears that there was not much fun on Christmas during the Spanish times.  Santa Claus, Christmas trees and other trimmings arrived with the Americans to become part of Pinoy culture in the first half of the 1900s.  Christmas shopping and Christmas parties were not part of our lifestyle then.  

The mood of the season was somber, the focus on the spiritual starting from the feast of the Immaculada Concepcion, patroness of the country and of the cathedral, on the 8th of December until the feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January. 

At the Manila Cathedral, they held 40 hours of jubilee for the Immaculate Conception.  The ordinates had specific assignments during the religious services from the 8th to the 10th of December.  In 1859, for example, ordinates Dn Jacinto Zamora and Dn Jose Burgos were assigned to keep watch before the Blessed Sacrament, Zamora on 9th December, 10:00-10:30 AM, and Burgos on the 10th, 6:30-7:00 AM.  The next year, they had the same assignments, Zamora during the early evening of the 8th and Burgos during the early morning shift. 

The religious mood can also be gleaned from the whole-page spread titled "Alegoria de la noche buena" in the 25 December 1875 issue of the El Oriente, an illustrated weekly on the sciences, literature, arts, etcetera.  The upper part depicted the events of Christmas: the trip to Jerusalem, the nativity, the epiphany and escape to Egypt.  The lower portion depicted two men tending to a flock of turkeys, people going to church, and a group gathered around a dining table. Did the noche buenas of yore have turkeys in the menu? 

"Alegoria de la noche buena"

An inside section featured the cultos religiosos (religious services) that informed readers of the daily schedules of these services in the various churches inside the walled city from the 19th (Sunday) to the the 25th (Saturday), Christmas day.

Schedule of religious services, 19-25 December 1875.

 According to the schedule, the daily misa de aguinaldo would continue to be celebrated in the Intramuros and Santo Domingo churches starting at 4:30 and 5:00 o'clock in the morning, respectively.

On the 24th, there would be a vigil of the nativity, and Christians are asked to do fasting and abstinence on that day. 

Christmas day would begin with a sung mass in almost all the churches at midnight in celebration of the ineffable mystery of the birth of Jesus, sung with all solemnity before the matins.

There was a time in our religious history, in the 1680s, when the archbishop prohibited the celebration of the misa de aguinaldo because the masses were contaminated "with practices that were superstitious, and contrary to the holy rites of the church" (Sanchez et al, 1683-89).   

But around a century later, Fray Pedro Murillo Velarde (1749) was already writing about the nine-day early morning masses being sung with great solemnity.  

In 1885, Fray Pedro Rosell (1885) was describing to his superior the religious ceremonies being held "to honor the birth of our Blessing, Jesus."  He wrote of the celebration of the immaculate conception "a week beforehand" followed by "a daily mass of the [Virgin Mary]," which we read as the nine-day dawn misas de aguinaldo.

"On the last day or the vigil of the feast," Rosell continued, "a pleasing, although simple Belen was made at one side of the presbytery in which were placed the images of the Child, Mary, and Joseph. Christmas eve came, and at eleven o'clock the bells were rung loudly, and from half past eleven until twelve, a continual ringing of bells two at a time announced to the people that the mass called Gallo was to be celebrated in memory of that holy hour in which the eternal Son of God the Father, made man in the most pure entrails of the Virgin Mary willed to be born on that poor and abandoned manger threshold [portal de Belen]. Hence when twelve o'clock had struck, the missa-cantata was said, which was followed by the adoration of the holy Child. That was made enjoyable by the singing of some fine Christmas carols. The twenty-fifth dawned bright and joyful."

It's 2013, and Christmas remains bright and joyful with both religious and commercial trimmings.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

References: 

• I.E.14 Libro de Gobierno Ecclesiastical (March 1846-May 1862).  Folder 2. Document 3044 (p. 194-198). Archdiocesan Archives of Manila.

• I.E.14 Libro de Gobierno Ecclesiastical (October 1852 - May 1862), 2⁰.  Folder 1. Doc. 3124 (p. 223).  Archdiocesan Archives of Manila.

•  El Oriente (1875, Dec 25). Alegoria de noche buena and Cultos Religiosos. SDS-23337 El Oriente 1875-76. National Archives of the Philippines.

• Sanchez, Juan, et al. (1683-89). Felipe Pardo as archbishop. The Pardo Controversy. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   39(1):245-246. Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0039.001 

• Velarde, P. M. (1749). Jesuit missions in the seventeenth century.  The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   44(1):108-109.  Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from  http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0044.001

• Rosell, P. (1885, Apr 17). Letter from Father Pedro Rosell [S.J.] The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 : explorations by early navigators, etc. (Blair, E.H. & Robertson, J. A., Eds., Bourne, E.G., Tr.).   43(1):225-228.  Mandaluyong, Rizal: Cachos Hermanos, 1973.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/atd7328.0043.001