Happy Fiesta!!!

Here's an article I wrote and was published in the souvenir program of the Batangas City Sto. Nino Association in Northern California:

                  Memoirs of a Batanguena: The Town Fiesta

        The city and its townsfolk might have changed dramatically over the years, but the festive atmosphere surrounding January 16th of each year in honor of the patron saint, the Sto. Nino, carries on. It is a week-long celebration in Batangas City consisting of festivities initiated by the church and the city mayor’s office. Take my hand, I’m going to walk you through an authentic town fiesta experience, the memoirs of which I have chronicled for three decades in my heart while growing up in Batangas City…

        You feel the remaining traces of the cool breeze from the holiday season on your face, as you look up from the street to see buntings and streamers being set up from one light post to another. The traveling amusement has made its way to the sports complex we grew up calling stadium (pronounced in our tongue as “is-tad-yoom”) and you hear the faint sound of the current dance hit squeaking from the loudspeaker at the people’s quadrangle behind the municipal building each night. We attend the 9-day novena each afternoon at the church. You know the fiesta is just around the corner.

        I remember enjoying the trips we used to make to the “perya” at the stadium. It is your typical country amusement fair where you find games such as the bingo (using corn kernels as markers), the spin-a-win, and stalls where you throw loops to win prizes like cups, plates, and stuffed animals. There’s the “beto-beto”, a game where you place a token under one of three upturned cups and a man moves these around briskly for you to track and guess which cup it is with the token underneath. It’s a rather tricky game that leaves you cross-eyed and wondering if anyone ever wins it at all. As you move around to ride the Octopus, the Ferris wheel, and the rollercoaster (all so minute and squeaky compared to Disneyland rides), your nose catches a whiff of popcorn from carts lit by makeshift gas lamps, cotton candy and barbecue being fanned by the vendors.

        You get tired shuttling from one activity to another but you still get excited as a new one is introduced each year. You want to stand on the bridge or by the river bank of the Kalumpang under the scorching sun to watch as they bring the Sto. Nino on a fluvial parade on the water. You hear pigs and goats being slaughtered in the backyards as men begin to cook the famous caldereta while downing bottles of gin and beer. You lose sleep watching the Binibining Lungsod ng Batangas (Miss Batangas) Beauty Pageant at the People’s Quadrangle to see who it is among the girls you know around town has suddenly bloomed to be beauty queen material.

        And on the day of the fiesta itself, you are roused from your sleep by the sound of drums and xylophones from the marching band parading around the city. That is, if you aren’t required to wake up early to join the parade with the majorettes or your co-workers to represent the establishment you work for. It is a long parade participated by all sectors of society. Some participants are dressed in native garb (baro’t saya), marching, or doing the local subli dance with bamboo castanets on their hands. The winners of the pageant don beautiful gowns and sit on floats adorned with flowers and crepe paper. It is no Rose Bowl parade, but beautiful, unique and rich with substance indeed. We also see the ati-atihan, children wearing loin cloths, sacks and straws, their skin blackened all over with charcoal, as they chant their way down the street to a very primal beat that makes you bob your head to the rhythm as beads of sweat trickle down your forehead in the sweltering mid-day heat.

       Family, relatives and friends settled or working in Metro Manila and other cities manage to find their way back home amidst the heavy traffic. But the best part of it all? The fiesta food! Everyone has an open house around the city. You are invited to your friends’ homes, still decked with Christmas cheer, as they are to yours. I remember moving from one house to another eating everyone’s own version of the afritada, caldreta, menudo, puto and dinuguan (pork blood), kilawing taghilaw, embutido (meatloaf), macaroni or potato salad, fruit salad, biko (rice cake) and leche flan. It is a city-wide food trip that everyone from all walks of life is welcome to partake. And no one minds growing a dress size bigger from the feasting and all.

        The fiesta culminates with a mass and a procession of the Sto. Nino from the Immaculate Conception Church. My dad is lucky to be one of the so-called Guardians of the Sto. Nino, a group of men in charge of taking care of the image and following the float in the procession. In my own way, I am lucky too. I grew up as a full-blooded Batanguena witnessing it all. The beautiful culture, the creativity, warmth and hospitality of the people, the devotion and spirituality, the tradition…everything that makes our people proud is brought out altogether by the town fiesta. The memories are etched in my heart forever.

        One day, I will come back home to experience it all over again.  Be with me.