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HEY, JOE
Filipinos have a New Year's
blast
By Ted Lerner
LA UNION,
Philippines - Ten days before New Year's Eve it was
common to see foreigners in the Philippines with a beer
or cocktail in hand. That may seem like no big deal,
seeing as the Philippines is universally considered a
drinkers' paradise. Prices of spirits are ridiculously
low. A liter of good-quality rum costs just US$1. A
bottle of San Miguel beer will put you out about 30
cents. For such reasons, drinkers like to call this
country seventh heaven.
"Have drink, will party"
seems to be the motto of a good many Filipinos around
Christmas. Frankly, though, it can be quite difficult
figuring out where it all begins and ends. The
Philippines is said to have the longest holiday season
in the world. The common refrain is that the holidays
start in September and finish some time in mid-January.
Longtime residents even swear that the holiday season
runs longer than that: from New Year's straight through
to Christmas, with an extra week of intense partying
just to make sure they didn't miss anything.
But
there's undoubtedly another reason the foreign crowd
finds itself constantly looking for the nearest bottle
this time of year. The nerves are frayed, the body and
mind on edge. About two weeks prior to New Year's Eve,
you hear the first concussive blast. It comes suddenly,
out of nowhere, while you're enjoying a conversation, a
read or a quiet meal. The noise is so loud and so
unexpected that your body convulses violently in fear.
You wonder for a split second: was that a gunshot, a
terrorist bomb? And then you peek outside and see the
Christmas lights blinking everywhere. You recall that
roadside vendors have sprung up weeks before, selling
fireworks big and small, and colorful party hats and
noisemakers.
From there it picks up day after
day. But since it's not New Year's yet, you still don't
expect that hideous jolting noise. Thus you find
yourself unexpectedly shrieking and freaking several
times a day as veritable bombs explode when you least
expect them. Suddenly the more civilized holiday revelry
others are making looks like the proper antidote.
The fireworks make a brief appearance at
midnight on Christmas Eve. But it's only a mild warmup
for what goes on the following week. And since you know
the veritable onslaught of explosive partying that will
surely come on New Year's Eve, the drink starts to flow.
By the time New Year's Eve comes around, and the world
around you is literally exploding and on fire, your
nerves are finally calm, thanks to the free-flowing
medicine.
Officialdom tried once again to stop
the sale of fireworks this year. They said the practice
of everyone setting off tons of explosives was
dangerous. Indeed, New Year's celebrations in the
Philippines annually leave dozens of people dead, and
hundreds become maimed and injured. And then, they said,
there was the cost factor. The millions of poor should
save their money to spend on important things like food
and education for their children. But like many other
official proclamations and warnings here, nobody paid
them any mind.
Filipinos welcomed 2004 by
spilling out on to the streets and setting off veritable
caches of explosives: rolls of firecrackers, roman
candles, homemade mini-bombs made of tree bark, bottle
rockets. While the adults lit the big bombs, the kids
played with sparklers and watusi, a small stick
the size of a fingernail that they rub under the sole of
their slipper and which dances and snaps and smokes.
Together it all made the air up and down the archipelago
thick with smoke. And when it cleared at least 35 were
dead and hundreds injured.
As usual the
authorities came out the next day promising that, next
year, sales of fireworks would be curbed.
"They
want to ban all fireworks?" said one expat, an American
named Tom, as the street around him convulsed in atomic
blasts and revelry. "Yeah, right. You can't stop these
people from setting off fireworks. It's ridiculous."
That certainly would have been the sentiment of the
folks, young and old, who had poured out of their houses
to welcome the new year if somebody had come and told
them that next year things would be different.
Indeed Filipinos wouldn't feel right if they
didn't blow something up on New Year's Eve. You see that
bottle rocket go up and it's like watching a kilo of
rice get sent into the outer reaches of the atmosphere.
But then again, so what? Filipinos, normally quite
practical people, throw it all out when it comes to
celebrations. Filipinos would feel out of whack for the
rest of the year if they didn't make tons of noise and
blow up the block on New Year's Eve. To them it's not a
waste of money. They're warding off the evil spirits and
welcoming the friendly spirits for the new year. Blowing
off your finger at New Year's is a legitimate and vital
right of passage in this culture.
Tom was
speaking, rather shouting, about two blocks from the
beach in the quaint little town of San Juan in the
beautiful province of La Union in the northern part of
Luzon. Fireworks big and small, from the little popping
cap and flares for the children to the giant rolls of
firecrackers were being set alight. In the distance over
the water, several beach resorts were firing giant
colorful bursting fireworks into the air. The air near
and far was alive with the sounds of munitions
exploding. Shouts of laughter filled the occasional dead
spot.
In an empty lot next to Tom's house, a
tribe of Igorots, natives from the Cordillera mountains,
brought in the New year with their ritual dancing in the
circle. One guy banged a pot and another a drum, the
tinkling and pounding combining with conspicuous downing
of gin and some other wicked home brew to put them all
in an inebriated trance.
They had come down from
the mountains packed into two jeepneys to celebrate the
new year with Tom's wife, who comes from their tribe.
The Cordilleras are just a few hours' drive from the
coast here. The Philippine summer capital of the north,
the teeming city of Baguio, is only about an hour's
drive. The far reaches of the Cordillera are just
several hours more. This is the breadbasket of the
country.
People will tell you that the weather
in La Union is like the California coast, and one would
be hard pressed to find some place more pleasant. The
province, situated on the South China Sea, produces rice
and corn, along with a fair amount of tobacco. From here
on north into the Illocos regions of the Philippines,
tobacco is the king crop. US tobacco companies have had
a foothold here for a century, buying up tobacco that
goes into Marlboro cigarettes.
Foreigners have
been a mainstay here for decades. The US military had a
small base, Wallace Air Station, just outside the
capital city, San Fernando, and the area was known for
its girlie bars and beaches. Nowadays the area attracts
a fair amount of Germans who come to the various beach
resorts and drink themselves silly on little money.
Americans, Aussies and Japanese come as well, mostly for
the surfing and the drinking.
This is also one
of the big smuggling regions of the Philippines.
Mainland Southeast Asia is just about 160 kilometers
across the South China Sea. Much of what is brought in
comes through the town of Vigan, which is up the coast
about two hours. Vigan is famous for its Spanish
architecture, which largely remains intact. But it's
also well known as a place where motorcycles,
electronics and food pull up on the beach under the
cover of darkness and then make their way to local
markets by the time the blazing tropical sun comes up.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas and New
Year's, the town plaza of San Juan offered the perfectly
charming Christmas setting. The ever-present church
formed the usual centerpiece, framed in white lights for
the holidays. In the plaza in front of the church,
people casually strolled under the massive tall trees
that had been decorated with vertical colored lights and
lanterns. Vendors sold popcorn, cotton candy, trinkets
and cheap plastic toys from China. Nearby an outdoor
stage offered mini-theater productions in the native
tongue, Illocano, a boxing match and concerts. Across
the street in the gymnasium, the big event just before
the end of the year drew thousands - the Miss San Juan
2004 beauty pageant. In the parking lot nearby, little
children rode the merry-go-round. Next door a public
karaoke was in full swing with half-naked women prancing
on the television. Adults and kids alike jockeyed for
space at the numerous gambling stalls, placing small
wagers on which color will come up, where the bouncing
ball will land, or which number the snake-light will
stop on. Winners took home plastic wash basins, canned
goods, bags of chips and cookies.
Laid back and
festive is the perfect way to describe the scene and it
was replicated in villages big and small throughout the
country. As New Year's approached it was clear hardly
anybody had worked in weeks. Filipinos are given the
space and time to relax fully and they take full
advantage of it.
Come midnight on New Year's
Eve, though, it was a different story, where complete
anarchy reigned. By 1:30 in the morning all was quiet,
except for the stray firecracker and, of course, the
resonating sounds of the karaoke machine. No night, no
celebration in the Philippines is complete without
karaoke. The Igorot folk may have been in a
2,000-year-old trance through midnight, but it was
Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" that brought their
night to a close.
If you think that's the end of
it, though, you're totally wrong. There was the long
weekend that followed. Then, of course, there's fiesta
season coming up in January and then Chinese New Year
and more fiestas in May. Then the big presidential
election happens around the same time, which in the
Philippines could be the biggest party of them all.
Fortunately most of these occasions don't come
with the neighborhood going up in flames.
Ted Lerner is the author of The
Traveler and the Gate Checkers, a book of Asian
travel tales, as well as Hey, Joe - A Slice of the
City, an American in Manila. E-mail directly at
ted@hey-joe.net or visit www.hey-joe.net.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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