Clark Expo lures Holy Week visitors

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Tourists may be in for an alternative celebration of the Holy Week at the Clark Expo, formerly Expo Pilipino, at this special economic zone.

The park will be open to the public starting this Palm Sunday up to Black Saturday.

On Good Friday, as tourists arrive in droves to this province to witness flagellations and "crucifixions" in Barangay San Pedro Cutud in the City of San Fernando, some 20 kilometers south of this ecozone, the park has lined up several activities.

The week-long activities dubbed "Maleldo," a contracted Kapampangan term for Holy Week, will start with a cultural-spiritual musicale led by former priest Crispin Cadiang, the Dalit Kapampangan Chorale and the Sinukwan Performing Arts.

Cadiang, a noted singer and composer of original Kapampangan songs, used to be the chaplain at the Clark ecozone when the theme park was being constructed supposedly as the centerpiece of the centennial of Philippine Independence in 1998.

"The Holy Week activities are part of government efforts to revive the park," Cadiang said.

He said the idea cropped up when Secretary Renato Diaz, presidential adviser for Northern Luzon, asked him to come up with a project in coordination with the Clark Development Corp. (CDC), the Institute for Kapampangan Studies of the Angeles University Foundation and his own Dalit Kapampangan Production.

The two-hour Palm Sunday musicale, which will start at 4 p.m., will be choreographed by Peter de Vera and directed by noted musician Jake Abella.

It will be held at the Colonial Plaza, which depicts the Philippines during the Spanish occupation, including a replica of the historic Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan.

"It will be largely a cultural thing, but also spiritual to some extent," Cadiang said.

"A cast of characters donning Filipino costumes will ‘dance out’ scenes from the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The audience will be able to participate in the scenes as they will be given palm branches to welcome Jesus, too," he said.

However, he said, Jesus would be an imaginary figure as no one will play the character.

From the patio of the mini-Barasoain Church, the dancers will follow the imaginary Jesus inside the church, which can accommodate about 500 people.

"There are no pews there now, but we have prepared palm mats on the floor where the audience can squat as they view the presentation," he said.

Cadiang himself will sing Kapampangan songs relating the events as the dancers interpret them.

From the church, the audience will follow the cast to the Heroes’ Park where an old woman would recite the puni, the Kapampangan equivalent of the pasyon, the traditional singing of verses relating Jesus’ sufferings.

Flagellants will then come in, with the audience again being asked to march with them.

The last scene will lead the audience bearing lit candles to the roofed amphitheater of the Island Park for the rest of the musicale depicting the passion of Jesus, his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and then His resurrection.

From Holy Monday to Black Saturday, there will be no musicales, but Clark Expo will be open to the public for meditation and Stations of the Cross before specially designed artworks made by local artists from indigenous materials.

"There will be refreshment booths for families who would like to picnic in the park and do some bonding," Cadiang said.