All Saints Day in The Philippines

Last year, 2005, I was able to witness Holy Week here in The Philippines, which is one of the two major holidays here in The Philippines, the other being Christmas, which I’m already beginning to witness as Christmas decorations are already going up all over the place. The third biggest holiday here is Halloween and All Saints Day, which is kind of like a family reunion — in the graveyard.

Since I had heard in advance that this was a major holiday here, I expected revelers on the streets at night, beginning on Halloween, but not seeing them I inquired to find out “everyone is in the graveyard”. At first I thought this to be soimewhat of a joke. Like maybe there’s a couple of small parties in the graveyard, but really, everyone was in the graveyard.

On All Saints Day, as nightfall came, I went to one of the local private cemetaries, Divine Sherpard, and sure enough, everyone was in the graveyard. This place was packed. Some of the major fast food franchises had booths setup. I saw pizza deliveries, there were traffice enforcement officers, and virtually every grave area had a tent or umbrella set up, with fold-up chairs, blankets, mattress pads and even tables. Candles burned on nearly every grave.

It really was a family reunion. If the dead can’t come to us…we’ll go to them. I accompanied Marissa’s parents and one of her brothers and a nephew. We stopped at different areas where there were families they knew and I met a lot of people who would point to graves and say “here is my grandfather” or “this is my father and mother here”. It really was quite a social event.

The Philippines is a land of ancestor worship, but “veneration” is probably a more accurate term for Westerners than “worship” as people do not bestow upon their ancestors god-like powers, they simply revere them and pray for them. Large extended families are common here, and respect for elders is widespread. I can imagine that if I had grown up here in The Philippines, spending one or two nights in the graveyard every year, watching my parents pray for their parents, watch them talk to them, tell them how their lives were going, that I too would have developed much differently. It is easy to see how the veneration of elders is instilled in young people by their being exposed to such practices.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 5th, 2006 at 05:43 and is filed under Philippines Expat Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.