Filippine, chiesa popolare

Alcune chiese di stile barocco costruite dagli spagnoli dopo il loro arrivo in questo arcipelago di 7000 e più isole, 400 anni fa, sono ancora in piedi. I muri fatti di grossi pezzi squadrati di tufo grigio o rosastro, le facciate con i loro motivi floreali molte volte scelti dagli stessi muratori, le pareti interne annerite dal fumo di chissà quante candele votive, le piccole finestre che lasciano penetrare poca luce ma anche poco caldo e i fedeli seduti o inginocchiati su vecchie panche ci fanno capire quanto è antica la fede cristiana nelle Filippine.

La religione nelle Filippine è popolare. Le feste sono affrontate con grande passione, tra processioni, danze per strada e novene celebrate prima ancora del sorgere del sole. Santo Nino, il Cristo Nazareno, la Madonna del Perpetuo Soccorso e le decine di Santi danno alla gente, molte volte povera ed indebitata, malata e indebolita, alcuni giorni di gioia e di allegria, di condivisione del cibo e dei sentimenti. Pakikisama, direbbero, cioe’ stare in compagnia. Ma non sempre è così.

Non ci può essere una pacifica coesistenza in un sistema dove forze aliene e mediatiche portano con incompresibile testardaggine modelli di vita consumistici, dove l’unico fine sembra essere e solo quello della ricerca della felicità personale. Può avere un’inizio molto frivolo come un semplice gioco d’azzardo e finire nel consumo smoderato di bevande alcooliche. D’azzardo si gioca pure quando la famiglia si indebita per trovare un posto di lavoro all’estero per il figlio o la figlia. Emigrare è il sogno più diffuso tra i giovani filippini. I genitori si indebitano per mandare i figli a scuola e diventare infermiera o marinaio, in Canada o su una nave di crociera. Sognano di ricevere, nell’arco di pochi anni, centinaia di dollari mandati tramite banca e la Western Union. Si pone la fiducia nei soldi e per ottenerli ci si fa corrompere o si corrompe.

E’ questa la società che la Chiesa Filippina deve affrontare. Il metodo non è cambiato da quasi quarant’anni, da quando il primo MSPC (Mindanao Sulu Pastoral Conference) nel 1973 ha proposto e poi realizzato ( inizialmente solo per le diocesi del sud) un network di comunità di base. Ancora oggi si parla di comunità ecclesiali di base come unico modo di essere Chiesa Filippina, immagine più vicina a quella del Regno di Dio. Una Chiesa (ma anche un mondo) ristretto a piccole comunità fatte di famiglie vicine che poi si allargano a una fratellanza più universale. Dove i principi morali praticati in famiglia prevalgano su quelli socioeconomici, dove le forze dello sviluppo sono giustizia, carità e solidarietà, dove i poveri non sono invisibili come ogni governo e società vorrebbe far credere.

Non è semplice e la Chiesa Filippina deve sempre guardarsi alle spalle, generazione dopo generazione, per vedere se la gioventù, il 50 per cento della popolazione, è ancora lì. Se riesce a consegnare loro la convinzione e la volontà di portare avanti questo progetto. Se non ci saranno avrà persa la sua funzione di guida e le comunità ecclesiali di base saranno solo un bel ricordo del passato.

Le antiche chiese, edifici sacri, rimangono. Nuove chiese vengono costruite per accogliere un maggior numero di fedeli. Si parla di circa 60 milioni di filippini su 92 milioni, famiglie intere, che parteciperanno alla novena, celebrata prima dell’alba dal 16 al 24 dicembre, in preparazione al Natale. Movimento di fedeli unico al mondo. Per molti questa è la vera immagine della chiesa filippina. E’ un immagine che mi piace, che mette pace nel mio animo, ma solo per pochi giorni. In fondo diventiamo quello che riusciamo a ricordare e se fosse solo questo sarebbe troppo poco.

Pabasa

Manila (AsiaNews) – updated

In the Philippines, Holy Week celebrations are famous worldwide for voluntary crucifixions that have always been condemned by the local Church. Less known is instead is the personal preparation of each believer in the recitation of the Pabasa ng Pasyon (Passion of Christ in Tagalog) a chant-like song imported from Spanish missionaries, passed down for centuries from father to son.  The Pabasa is a chant that tells of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus and was composed in the seventeenth century by Spanish missionaries, adapting the European biblical tradition to the oral and melodic traditions of the indigenous Filipinos however the actual Pabasa is no more rooted in the Spanish language.

The illeterate people asked for a version in local dialect so that they could become familiar with the events regarding Jesus. The first version written in Tagalog language dates back to 1704 and was made by Gaspar Aquino de Belen, an native of Batangas in the service of the Jesuits in Manila. It was entitled Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin na Tola ( The poem of the Blessed Passion of  Jesus Christ our Lord).  Another popular version of the Pasyon the “Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni JesuCristong Panginoon Natin na Sucat Ipag-alab nang Puso nang Sinomang Babasa” (The History of the Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord that will set afire the heart of whosoever reads it), has been published by an unknown writer in 1814. It starts with few stanzas about the Creation of the World and it ends with some words about the Apocalipses of Juan. This text continues to be used to the present day among the Tagalogs . The group of Pasyon singers is usually divided into two and the singing would alternate between them. The verses are structured in five-line stanzas, with each line containing eight syllables. A complete stanza can be chanted in only one breath. For instance:

Tanto rin naming lahat na  /  Bayang tinubunan Niya  /  Ito ay taga Galilea  /  Tawong Duk-ha at hamak na  / Naquiquisunong talaga . (We all know, too / The town he hails from / He is from Galilea / A man poor and lowly / Who shelters in others’roofs)

Today the pabasa could go on for three days, depending on the melody and if most of the Pasyon is read. Usually it starts at 6 a.m. and finish by 10 p.m., but some Pabasa continue until early in the morning of the next day creating some problems when powerful amplifiers are used to spread around the singing in the nearby surrounding keeping awake people who, instead, prefer to sleep.

Maria Cristina Lapara, a Catholic from Manila, said: “I have recited the Pabasa since I was a child. I learned this traditional song from my grandparents, who were illiterate but very religious and participate wholeheartedly in the passion, singing without written texts”. She added; “I tell my children to pray with their heart and recite the Pabasa and I hope that in future they will continue this tradition.”  During Holy Week, Maria Cristina gets up every morning at three o’clock to recite the song.   ”At this time  – she says – we must maintain an atmosphere of sobriety and spiritual reflection, we should not make noise on the streets, it is not a time of celebration.”

The woman points out that there are many ways to recite the prayer alone, in pairs or communities, for a few hours or days. Many families  provide food for all those involved in the recitation of the song, while in rural villages the faithful gather in the street, where every day from 6 am to 10 am both young and old together recite prayers. Even in the prisons of the country inmates are expected to recite the song  (First time visitors to the jail  during Holy Week are amazed to find detainees taking turns in the Pabasa).

For Maria Cristina, the Pabasa allows the faithful to share in Christ’s sufferings and is useful especially for the poor to remember the sacrifice of Jesus and his Resurrection, finding the strength to face their daily difficulties with hope.  “The Pabasa is not only way to fulfil the precepts of Lent – says Fr. Fernando Caprio of the Archdiocese of Manila – it is also a way to follow Christ and be witnesses of faith around the world and helps us remember that Christ shines in all the circumstances of our lives. “

Read also : “Pasyon and revolution: popular movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910“ , of  Reynaldo Clemeña Ileto

         Or learn the  TUNE

PalmSunday

Before the Mass on Palm Sunday (Linggo ng Palaspas, Domingo de Ramos or Domingo sa Lukay), catholics carry palm fronds to be blessed by the priest, some interlaced and adorned in different shapes  by the faithfuls themselves. In this occasion the usual reading is about Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when he was welcomed by people waving palm fronds and laying their cloaks on the ground for his donkey to walk upon. Then the priest blesses the weaving palms with holy water. In the liturgy, the reading of the gospel, the Passion, is done in a dramatised manner wherein each part is read by a different liturgical minister. Generally the narration part is read by the commentator while the dialogues are read by one of the lectors. The parts that were spoken by the crowd can be given to the choir or the music ministers. Only the lines that were spoken by Christ Himself are reserved to the priest. After the mass the people will bring the palms at home and place them above their front doors or windows, in the popular belief that doing so can ward off evil spirits and even avert lightning.

SunOfChristmas

The real time is always a product of our imagination. In the Philippines “time” is called “panahón” from the root “dáhon”, which means “leaf”. “Panahón” means also “season”. An event in space that very slowly appears, grows and then falls down. This is the reason why in the Philippines Christmas is not just a day but a period of time. It starts in December 16 and go on until the great festivity of Santo Niño on the third Sunday of January when street dances,like leaves, will multiply all over the Country. It is as every filipino would like to remain near the little Jesus as long as possible. On the other hand this prolonged festival helps to face the rigidity impose by daily timetables, work, rules and regulations that many times are the causes of tensions, diversity, difference of class and marginalization among people. So, in this traditional season you have plenty of time to better appreciate the gifts of peace, friendship and solidarity, values contained in every Christmas message.

Naturally the product of imagination can also overcome the slow grow of a leaf in order to have an immediate moment of pleasure and trasgression. Every festivity has its own trasgression and, as usual, they will be expiated at the beginnig of the next festive cycle like, for instance, the Holy Week. Unless you, regardless any cycle, would like to continue to live excited moments like a grown up (but not innocent) child. As a local says: “Drink Beer now because there isn’t any in the Sky” and here only the imagination of yourself dropping withered to the ground, the same where the trees rise, can change your mind. (Luciano)

SunOfChristmas

“Sa malayon ha nabunkal”, the sky is circular, it is said in Olaging the Epic Song of the Bukidnon, and the Sun guarantees this circolarity. With the arrival of the Muslims before and the Spanish later the circle was straightened and called History and the indigenous people begun to hear terms like “past, present and future”. Very soon they found themselves in a linear fraction of the time that had already thousands of years. Years lost or earned? Difficult to say. Difficult to calculate even today where the calendars say that 2009 years passed already but at the numbers and names of the days they add also the icones and the dates of the four lunar phases, for which is not important the goal, where we are heading, but the resumption of the cycle. As a local proverb says: Bisan ano ka lawid ang prusisyon, magbalik man sa simbahan gihapon (for how much long is a procession always returns in church). Eternal but recurrent return that Institutions, Governments and Religions use in their liturgies, sacred and profane, allowing themselves to mantain a linear course in the years, towards short, long and a, but more and more delayed, final goal.

With the arrival of the great Religions, the indigenous people began also to hear about the End of the World (or the Day of the Judgment in part similar among the Religions). Even today some belives that the End is imminent for the presence in the World of an Anti-christ or a Dark Messiah (muslims call him Dajjal) and the necessity of a Holy War against its armys. But it is only a matter of Scriptures that very few have time to read and to interpret. At the End, anyway it is written, what God had already planned in the beginnig will arrived. But Islam arrived in the Philippines 600 years after its foundation and the Christianity after 1500 years from the birth of Jesus, when the arrival of the End had already lost its original liveliness, novelty and fear. Today like yesterday, people waking up at the crow of the rooster only asks to survive and the End of the World remains, perhaps, a vague religious metaphor. Today more than ever the believers in the Creator and in the Merciful God ask the Grace of a long life, generous in goods, happiness and technology. Perhaps the After-Christ is not at all a History with an End already printed but a timorous waiting of a different morning.

SunOfChristmas

From a dark cave-stable, where for sure a fire could not be ignited, to the daylight. This is the parabole of the Sun and of Jesus. Ours too, because it is true that we have inhabited the womb of our mother before seeing the light. A birth is always a festivity. The first one celebrated with the Baptism, which is a second symbolic birth. It begins in Church and it ends nearly always with a banquet that will be repeated in every following birthdays. Soon in the dusk, that precedes the morning, the day of your own birth is celebrated with the songs of the “magnanita” sung by relatives and friends at the door of your own house where it comes out naturally the outcry “Happy Birthday”. On the same style the Christmas Carols performed by group of christians on the month of December interposed with the exclamations “Merry Christmas”. Happy and merry because we still alive and we can go ahead with a sigh of relief. Every birthday and anniversary that we celebrated have the ability to darken our life with death. For this reason we must multiply the festivities in order to feel ourselves alive: from those of Birthdays, to those of Christmas and Passover, from the Feasts of Patrons and Saints to the Days of Foundations, to the Civil and Military recurrences, Saint Valentine, Halloween, reunions of families, club, clan, concerts, festivals, street dances of the ethnic AtiAtihan and carnivals, confraternites and ordinations, silver, gold and diamond anniversaries, for a successfully passing of a board-exam, for a grace received and also around the remains, in the coffin, of a deceased person who will not be able anymore to celebrate alive his or her own birthday if not the one only afterlife. But in the day of the interment in the cemetery, the Sun loses its importance because one returns to the mother-earth and the others, after the revels and anyhow, on her are still relying upon.

SunOfChristmas

The myth of a god  born in the darkness,  in a cave, was already known to the people of  the pre-Christian world. On December 25 they celebrated the birth of Mitra, the god of the celestial light, the keeper of the truth. In the carved images Mitra is represented like a master who teaches the childllike Sun to understand the right direction of its celestial travel that it had to be regular and without confusion. In the myth Mitra makes the Sun to go up on a chariot in order to show Him the right way to ride in sky and letting the Night behind. In the Greek mythology the keepers of the Sun were the Erinni, the maidens of Justice. For the ancient people it was important that in every day the cycle of the Sun had its regular cadences from dawn to sunset.

In Mindanao, in the epic song “Olaging, the Battle of Nalandangan”, during the creation of the earth the tribals of Bukidnon describe the men arriving  from East, where the Sun is born, and going where the Sun sets down, indicating also the two ends of the life, birth and death. Animal symbol of the sun, in some Philippine etnic groups, is the rooster and the “sarimanok”, its stylied design, that represents the sun as well, is usually placed on the top of the roof of the houses or on the prows of the boats. Bruno Bottignolo, in its book “Celebrations With the Sun”, speaks about the great rituals of the rising of the sun among the Badjaos, usually celebrated in their boat-houses and forehead to the Umboh, the Wall, where the Sun recreates every day the cosmic woven. Obviously many places and sacred buildings, rectangular or lengthened in shape, were, and are still, arrange on the East-West (birth and death) axis. The sun also appears in the Philippine flag. Originally it was the mythical sun with eyes, eyelashes, nose and mouth. Today it is a yellow circle with eight beams or tips that remember the first 8 provinces that, during the revolt of the Katipuneros, rebelled to the Spanish. There is who, like senator Dick Gordon, who would want to add to a ninth beam representative the fight of independence of the Muslims from the colonial government.

Lastly the catholic birth of the Sun, Jesus Christ himself introduced by the Spanish centuries ago. Officially begins December 16 with the Christmas Novena, called, depending where it is celebrated, Misa de Gallo (Rooster), Simbang Gabi or Misa de Aguinaldo. Nine holy masses all beginning in the still deep and dark night and ending at the first twilights of the rising Sun.

A PHILIPPINE ISSUE

by Bienvenido Tudtud (1987)

PRENOTES

* The conflict in Mindanao is not a “Muslim Problem”. It is a Philippine Problem

* The Mindanao question is not to be answered only by Mindanao and in Mindanao. The needed answer is a Philippine answer

* The Problem is a complex one. Quick, simple and violent answers will not compound it.

THE SITUATION

Throughout the country there is a conflict between ways of looking at the world and of responding to it.

In this brief outline, to have a better grasp of the situation, we may use with some hesitation the well-known Western categorization of human life – Political, Economic, Religious and others.

It is natural for tensions and conflicts to arise when there is a meeting in the concrete of worldviews and cultures. The problem becomes acute when one side tries to impose and is equipped to erase the other.

The Mindanao conflict is essentialy the same as the conflict in other areas of the country. The difference lies in the fact that in Mindanao some ethnic groups, such as the Maranaos, Maguindanaos, Tausugs, and others have become culturally stronger because of a sense of religious identity. Islam is their religion. With the help of certain Islamic countries, through arms and inspiration, they are able to struggle for their political, religious, cultural and economic identity.

POLITICAL

The Muslim groups in the Philippines feel that they are a distinct group and they also have a sense of nationhood. The sense of belonging to the rest of the nation is low and weak. Thus we have a case here of national groups which are being governed by a state which they do not consider to be their own. To elavate leaders from among them into high positions in that state is not necessarly a solution. Neither is the show of force by the military, even prescinding from its actual and rampant abuses.

ECONOMIC

The economic philosophy of the country is Western and its values of profit, speed, optimization and production, are not readly understandable and acceptable by the ethnic groups. The land on which they live is being used without their true consent, to feed the economic system of the rest of the country. The system cannot and does not wait for the “sloth” of these peoples.

RELIGIOUS

While Christians can readly make distinctions between Church and State, religion and politics, the Muslim consider the community and religion as one. Only one law must govern them – The Divine Law. Hence it was not difficult for them to make the equation beteween Christianity and the government of Spain and United States. It is easy for them today to identify Christianity with the government of the Republic since this is a “Christian” government.

OBSERVATIONS TOWARDS A SOLUTION

* History and the present situation have provided rich grounds for mutual prejudice beteween muslims and christians.

* Ignorance of each other is a cause of prejudice. Many Christians have strong feelings against Muslims even before any actual contact (and vice versa).

* To respect a people is to respect their faith…to belive that God’s Spirit is at work in Muslims and that they are saved because Islam.

* Dialogue is to be undertaken by equals.

* The church comes among Muslims as one which does not have all the answers and power. It is a Church that is also in need of other peoples, even for spiritual growth.

* In the past the priest came to the Muslims for the Christians only. To strengthen them against the hardships posed by Muslims. Now he should also come with the Christians to make them aware of their obligations as Christians to relate meaningfully with the Muslims.

* In any intercultural exchange there is bound to be the pain of change. One important work for a concerned Christian is to offer a reconciling presence which makes the conflict more bearable for all sides.

* The lives of the Christians must help Muslims make the needed distinction between Christianity and any form of government, system of economics or mode of culture. It does not help matters if the Church through her actions is identified with these.

CAVEATS

* Whatever is said should not lend itself to the interpretation that this is yet another attempt to Christianize or convert others. Hence care in the use of words like “Mission”, “Missionary”, “Evangelization”, and others

* The Muslims do not use the word “Father” for God

GiornoDeiDefunti

Onorare i morti è una tradizione antichissima fra gli asiatici. Nelle Filippine, sono la riverenza ed il rispetto profondo per gli antenati che definiscono una delle celebrazioni più cattoliche, Il Giorno delle Anime che si celebra i primi di novembre. In lingua Filipino, è chiamato Undas e in Cebuano è Kalag-kalag. Come El Dia de los Muertos in Messico è un’occasione molto festiva. L’intero paese si mette in moto alla ricerca di … fiori da portare in cimitero, non prima del primo novembre e nemmeno dopo il secondo. Negli ultimi giorni di ottobre il mercato del fiore prospera. Il prezzo di un mazzo di fiori può raddoppiare o triplicare ma dipende dal giorno. Più vicino è al 1 novembre, e più elevato il prezzo. Le candele pure sono naturalmente in grande richiesta. E poi i cibi e le squisitezze alimentari, i dolci tipici e l`immancabile pansit che con i litri di bibite analcoliche fredde, entrano nel cimitero a dare maggior festività alle bianche tombe che sudati preti e accoliti benedicono, una ad una, con altri litri ma di acqua benedetta. Nei mercati locali i fiori si trovano distesi nelle bancherelle dove taglia-fiori sono impegnati ad arrangiare mazzi, i più costosi poi sistemati in ciotole di varia fattura. Naturalmente, i fiori a basso prezzo sono qelli che arrivano direttamente dai poderi vicini, ma poi bisogna conoscere dove si mettono i contadini che li vendono a volte non troppo distanti dall`entrata del cimitero sotto qualche tenda fatta con sacchi di yuta. Solitamente hanno solo una due o tre varietà di fiori come i bianchi o gialli poto-poto, oppure la ilang-ilang abbastanza profumata o la comune “Regina delle spine”, a quattro petali rossi che quasi sempre orna gli altari dalle nostre parti. I fiori più belli e costosi arrivano comunque dalla Capitale MetroManila o dall`estero, portati dai parenti che ritornano in provincia per l`occasione (sono anche i giorni di vacanze scolastiche tra il primo e secondo semestre). Naturalmente sono rose, orchidee, margherite, e i classici crisantemi. I tulipani no. Ai fiori si aggiungono immancabilmente le barrette appiccicose dei lecca-lecca e i coni di gelati che si sciolgono miseramente tra le dita. Servono per tenere a bada i bambini o forse, con i fiori, a ricordare come è bella e dolce la vita anche tra morti e tombe.  Quest’anno infine c’è atmosfera irreale dopo il tramonto del primo novembre mentre  centinaia di tremolanti lumi continuano ad illuminare i piccoli luoghi di riposo delle anime e in alto la luna piena unico lume che appartiene a tutti.

Tradizioni venerdi’ santo

Venerdi’ Santo si celebra con processioni per le strade, via crucis e la commemorazione recitata della Passione chiamata il Senakulo. In alcune comunita’ alla processione partecipano anche i fedeli che si auto-flagellano, una pratica che resiste anche se e’ stata condannata molte volte dai vescovi filippini. Ogni comunita’, parrocchia e chiesa locale ha le sue varianti su come celebrare la giornata, in alcune, per esempio, si da piu’ enfasi alla ‘schiodatura’ e la deposizione del corpo di Gesu’che che alla crocifissione. Durante il giorno i negozi chiudono e le stazioni radio e televisive trasmettono solo meditazioni sulle Ultime Sette Parole di Gesu’ o film religiosi. Molti tuttavia preferiscono scalare le montagne come il monte Apo, la montagna di Mindanao di 3000 metri piu’ alta delle Filippine. C’e’ chi considera la sua cima come una Nuova Gerusalemme. Diversi, poi, si arrampicano in cima ad una montagna come gesto di sacrificio per poi attendersi in cambio benedizioni o miracoli, specialmente la cura delle malattie. Altri si mettono alla ricerca di grotte per ricaricare di potere i loro rosari oppure raccolgono erbe e radici per nuovi amuleti. Ma la maggior parte, soprattutto i giovani, si reca in altura il Venerdi’ Santo per respirare un po’ d’aria fresca e ammirare il panorama sottostante. I piu’anziani, che rimangono a casa incollati al ventilatore, ammoniscono i piu’ piccoli di non fare il bagno alle tre del pomeriggio, di non tagliarsi i capelli e le unghie e di non salire sugli alberi perche’ le ferite, anche piccole, contratte il venerdi’ santo fanno fatica a rimarginarsi. Infine non puo’ mancare la lotta dei galli in reverenza a quello di San Pietro.