⌛ Fiesta in the Philippines

September last year, a younger cousin I haven’t seen since childhood and who is married to an American, phoned me from the United States saying that she is coming home as a balikbayan in the later part of the month. Of course, as a part of Filipino hospitality (and because she’s family), we met her at the airport and invited her to stay with us before proceeding to our home town in Bicol province.

Meanwhile, another cousin from Europe who obviously kept in touch with the Stateside-cousin also confirmed through phone that she’s coming home in time for the fiesta in our native town of San Miguel. To show her gratitude for us agreeing to accompany her, she offered to defray the fare expenses.

Indeed, fiesta in the Philippines is a family affair and I recall that as a young boy, there were two significant events which called for a big celebration: the town fiesta and the New Year. Fiesta is something of Spanish influence which has become a part of our Filipino culture so that an attempt to stop it by legislation did not prosper.

For the fiesta, native residents who were out of town because of higher educational pursuit or job placement, managed to come home for the celebration. Those who could not make it because of some work conflict, just simply sent money to their old folks back home to help meet the expenses.

Fiesta in San Miguel brings back happy memories of past celebrations especially during my early teenage days. The memories, in the main, consist of the nine-day novena in honor of St. Michael the Archangel, the popular dance in the open air at the municipal tennis court, the procession, the solemn mass, the feasting, which to many people, is the most important part of the celebration.

As a tradition, the fiesta is preceded by the nine-day novena which starts on September 20. It was held in the early evening hours by reciting the rosary, novena prayers, and the gozo in the vernacular.

The gozo is in a form of poetry and has a refrain which in English reads: “St. Michael is our guide, he conducts and leads us to God). Accompanied by the town brass band, the gozo refrain is repeated after every stanza until the end. It was sung as the rockets (kwitis) outside the church whizzed into the air and exploded along with the luthang which is a metal vessel bigger than a beer mug and deposited with gun powder. It was so deafening that many covered their ears.