Christmas in the PhilippinesBy Fred Natividad, Forum memberLIVONIA, Michigan (December 2010)—This piece is for the benefit of my American grown children and their American wives and my American grandchildren, nephews and nieces, who, through no fault of theirs, are not familiar with Christmas in the Philippines. It is also for the benefit, of course, of my non-Filipino friends.
When we talk about Christmas in the Philippines let us start with the proud Philippine boast that the country is predominantly a Christian country even if Muslim missionaries from the Middle East reportedly arrived well ahead of Magellan and Catholic missionaries from Spain in 1521. Christmas traditions, therefore, evolved from what Catholic Spanish friars taught Filipinos. The friars were there for 377 years. They were booted out from the country (except in Manila) by General Aguinaldo’s peasant army in 1898.
I had been away for almost five decades now since immigrating to the United States but I would presume that the Christmases I remember would still be the same today. Growing up in a predominantly Catholic environment I routinely expected that December 16 each year marks the beginning of the Christmas season. Masses during the season are celebrated daily at dawn except the last one, which is celebrated at midnight of Christmas Eve.
There are stories that in the old days, the masses were held in the mornings but peasants, the segment of society that composed the majority of the population, would play hooky at church if they could get away with it. They had to work on their fields early before the tropical sun made working intolerable.
Spanish friars then decreed that masses would be held at dawn, depriving the peasants of any excuse to avoid going to church. It must be noted that at the time there was no separation of church and state and whatever the friars decreed the civil authorities enforced. Often harshly!
December dawns are dark in the Philippines because the country, though in the tropics, is in the northern hemisphere like the United States and mainland Asia. Grumbling peasants trudged to church while it is still “night,” so they called dawn service “
simbang gabi,” meaning “night mass.”
Luckily there is no such thing as snow to bog down oxcarts, the common transportation of peasants. While tropical storms bedevil that country about 20 times a year, the weather is usually pleasant during the Christmas season. Anyway oxcarts, pulled by lumbering carabaos, are no longer the main mode of transportation, having been replaced by a unique contraption called a “jeepney.”
Jeepneys are minibuses that evolved from jeeps left behind by U.S. armed forces after World War II. Of course, today, jeepneys are no longer made from the vintage military jeeps. Japanese imports saw to that.
It would not be surprising if the peasants disliked the dawn masses. Aside from losing some sleep before going to work, the peasants of old had to listen to the hated white friars jabbering in Latin at mass. They did not understand a word of Latin. Even today not even the sophisticated characters in Philippine high society can understand Latin.
As if Latin was not enough punishment, the peasants were required to drop precious coins into the collection box out of their poverty-level income!
Some nationalistic people contend that one fault of Filipinos is their gullibility as victims of colonial mentality. Eventually, dawn masses during the Christmas season became treasured traditions presumably because Filipinos became proud of their distinction as the only predominantly Christian—mostly Catholic—people in all of Southeast Asia.
As early as November, some houses would already sport bamboo-ribbed star lanterns at their windows. The tradition of hanging lanterns might have been inspired by the story of the bright star over Bethlehem when Jesus was born.
Today, the lanterns have evolved into giant works of art for a seasonal household industry. They are intricately designed, and one must see them to appreciate them. The famous production center of these giant artistic lanterns is an area around the former United States Clark Air Force Base.
The 99-year-old American lease for the base has expired. The United States military presumably no longer found the base relevant to their needs. Otherwise they would have pressured their government to negotiate with the Philippines for an extension of their lease in spite of Philippine senators opposing any extension.
Anyway, the destructive eruption of nearby Mt. Pinatubo rendered the facilities essentially inadequate for military use. The base is now a thriving commercial center and the military airport has been converted into a small international airport.
I remember the tradition that if we children missed receiving a gift on Christmas Day from a favorite uncle or baptismal godfather, it was traditionally all right for us to ambush him for a gift on any day after Christmas until January 6 of the new year. Perhaps this is because Filipinos, in spite of being pious, are also superstitious.
If The Baby in a Manger received gifts from three oriental kings well into the coming year after He was born, then it must also be all right for Filipino children to expect Christmas gifts from uncles, aunts, and godparents after Christmas up to January 6!
In other words, the Christmas season in the Philippines runs from December 16. It climaxes on the 25th, and winds down on January 6, for a total of 22 days! For 22 evenings we would go caroling around the neighborhood. No matter how much we murdered “Silent Night” or “Jingle Bells” with out-of-tune vocal chords and with mispronounced English words, we would be rewarded with a few coins.
Spanish friars taught Filipinos to honor saints with lavish celebrations called fiestas. Traditionally, during an annual town fiesta, any stranger from out of town can come to any house and enjoy holiday food. Fiestas are expensive and financially draining but Filipinos, generally poor as they are, learned to love the chance to show off hospitality once a year in spite of their miserable poverty.
The Christmas midnight mass has become one such fiesta. Groups of young men would escort their girlfriends to church. After the mass they would proceed to someone’s house for a traditional feasting that will last into the wee hours of dawn. One favorite repast is hot, thick, rice soup with chunks of chicken (
arroz caldo con pollo).
There are all sorts of rice cakes wolfed down with ginger tea or melted hot chocolate sweetened with brown granulated cane sugar. The chocolate might be made of cacao beans from the backyard that are roasted, ground, sweetened with cane sugar, and molded into a Philippine version of an American Hershey bar.
Today, in the homes of families with members earning dollars abroad, there will be expensive Scotch whiskey, ham, Chinese sweet meats, imported apples, oranges, grapes, American Hershey bars and other fancy stuff from America.
The Filipino’s love-hate fascination with America started in 1898. It came to pass that back in 1898, and into the next half-century, the Philippines became a territory of the United States. It began when the United States Navy demolished the Spanish fleet on Manila Bay. Christmases must have begun henceforth to have an American flavor. To a foreign visitor it must be funny to see Christmas trees decorated with white cotton to simulate snow in this hot country!
As I look back now, I could see that cold country motifs, no matter how comically out of place in the tropics, would dominate Christmas ambience. Pine trees—not coconut or bamboo trees—wll get decorated with fake snow. There will be fake cardboard fireplaces—never mind that the temperature is in the nineties...
At Christmas parties and at downtown stores, a five-foot-six-inch (the usual height of a Filipino) character will become a heavily costumed Santa Claus. With pillows stuffed at his belly he would swelter in the ninety-degree heat. But, well, it’s Christmas! There will be a sprinkling of native ditties in the air but what will predominate all over the seventy one hundred islands will be the classic strains of “Silent Night,” Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” and other American favorites.
But Christmas is Christmas in whatever way or form—Spanish, American or Filipino. So as they say out there,”
Maligayang Pasko!”
You already guessed what that means.
