Sinulog

To an outsider, especially to a non-Catholic, the whole Sinulog festival must seem a bit strange. After all, it isn’t every day that one finds people flocking to the Basilica to attend Mass among thousands of others in sunshine or in rain. Or to find a crowd of a million or so, proceeding along a city’s main thoroughfare following a hundreds-old wooden image of a child. Or to dance to the beat of the drums dressed in anything from lansones to grease to wild tribal outfits. Yes, to an outsider, the Sinulog must seem strange.

Which is why I thank God I am not an outsider. I have lived with Sinulog all my life. I have memories of waiting on top of a building downtown so I can watch the Sto. Niño in His caro pass and of joining the procession myself. And of my hair standing on end at the distant sound of drums. I have memories of snaking my way through a crowd, of walking through throngs of people to get my turn at saying hello to the image of the Child Jesus. The bright red melting candles shine vividly in my mind’s eye. One would think that after all these years of watching the parades and the processions, I would have gotten tired of it all and that it would have lost its meaning.

On the contrary, it has gotten more meaningful. On one hand, I no longer join in the Grand Parade and rarely go out to join in the after dinner gimmicks. Even I must lament the fact that it has gotten just a little bit too commercial for my taste (I mean, really, suggestive novelty songs should be banned from the repertoire of certain floats). But, on the other hand, I have learned to make my devotion to the Sto. Niño stronger, too. In the presence of so many devotees, it is difficult to remain impassive and stoic. As my mother always keeps reminding me, it is difficult to keep a dry eye when the faithful sing the love song to the Child Jesus, when they wave their hands in the air in silent and prayerful appeal for the Child to look their way with mercy. It is difficult not to be caught up in that hopeful expectation that the Father and the Son might join us in the rousing applause that ends every Mass. And it is a great reassurance to see such faith in the midst of such a chaotic and secular world.

To the outsider, perhaps, this faith might be a little difficult to take in. Those who are critical might find traces of pagan idolatry and an immature spirituality. But if they would only look closely, they might find the kind of faith that can move mountains, the kind that the innocent have and the sinners aspire for. Faith, I have found out, like any other virtue must also find its expression in the senses. It must weave itself in our speech and in our deeds, in the everyday and in the mundane. If sadness finds its expression in tears, and love in poetry, why might not faith find its expression in the waving of the hands, the wiping of the image, the singing of the hymn, the beating of the drums, the lighting of the candles, and in the raising of the jubilant voices of the faithful storming heaven with our cries of “Viva Pit Señor! Viva Senor Santo Niño!”