Dag-as, siyaman, laglagan & other Pinoy customs about the dearly departed

Being raised in Gulod has afforded me a front-row seat to some barrio customs about death. What seemed morbid and fearsome to me when I was a child has become a source of my own understanding of how death is also a celebration of a life well lived. The richness of the Filipino culture is not only about life and living — it’s also about the afterlife.

If the barrio life I grew up in is a barometer of Pinoy culture, it will disclose that death is a celebration, a communion among people, a reason for reverence and, at some point, revelry. All these and more can be found in our Filipino fiber.

Dag-as, obituary on the road

In those days when Gulod was still a sleepy village, a man named Tata Dodo had kept a mental note of those who had died in the barrio. Like a town crier, he brought dag-as to the people in different barrios and towns. Dag-as is an announcement of someone’s passing, usually the message is for relatives who live far away from the family of the departed. Dag-as is some sort of an obituary on the road, and the news is carried by a crier.

Many in Gulod grew up knowing Tata Dodo was the barrio’s well-meaning taga-dag-as or announcer of people’s death so relatives of the departed would have the chance to pay their last respects. He would go house to house to a particular town where he knew the departed had known relatives. And if he couldn’t locate the relatives, he would ask for help from the barangay captain to help him carry out the announcement.

In those days when people living in Gulod were practically related to everybody, Tata Dodo took to heart his self-imposed role as the person to carry the responsibility of disseminating the news of someone’s death. He dug from his own pocket if he had to travel far, say to Talim island in Rizal or to Alitagtag in Batangas, where the departed had relatives who would not have known about the death without Tata Dodo’s selfless intervention. (Many times, the bereaved didn’t have the time nor the energy to travel to distant places to notify their relatives about the death of a loved one.)

The advancement of communications has replaced dag-as with Facebook Messenger or video calls. In worst-case scenarios, the kibitzers would beat the bereaved family in announcing the death of a loved one on social media.

But to this day, somewhere in a place hard to reach by technology, a taga-dag-as comes along. He may not necessarily carry good news but his information is vital for the receiver of dag-as to reunite with long-lost relatives again. In death, life springs anew.

Siyaman is a gift to the soul

Growing up in Gulod, I was alien to the observance of 40 days after the death of someone. What was inculcated in me was the nine-day novena (also called pa-siyam or siyaman). In fact, as a child, I would sometimes join the neighbors led by Tata Arong in praying for the soul of the departed for nine days. (Tata Arong, always with a rosary around his neck, was the “holy man” of my childhood long before I became a sacristan in our chapel. He was a regular in spiritual activities in the neighborhood. Even before the presence of lay ministers in the Catholic church, Tata Arong was the go-to-man for buhos-tubig, the tradition of blessing a baby with water while waiting for a baptism schedule in the chapel of Gulod, which happened only once during the fiesta Mass.)

In those days, the superstitious belief of pagpag (cleansing of oneself of the bad spirit, usually in a restaurant or a well-lighted place, after going to a wake) was non-existent in the barrio. My mother thought it was irreverent if not disrespectful for people to do pagpag because it connotes the dead person is a harbinger of bad spirits.

My mother told me that the siyaman that begins from the day the person died, is a gift both to the dead and the living. Sure, the novena is intended for the soul of the deceased but it is also in this prayerful act that the bereaved derive strength to hold on to life. Prayers always work, again, for the living and the dead.

Nanay said, according to the elders of her childhood, it’s called siyaman (siyam means nine) because it takes nine days for the soul to find peace and balance in the afterlife after the death of the physical body. So the novena prayer is needed to help the soul.

Online sources said the “custom is based on the pre-colonial belief that the soul of the departed enters the spirit world on the ninth day following the death.” For the Orthodox Christians, “the ninth day after death is especially significant as it is believed to be the day when the soul is judged for its actions. Prayers and memorial services are held on the ninth day, offering spiritual support to the soul.”

On the ninth day of pasiyam, when the remains of the deceased have already been buried, a celebration is held. My childhood relished sopas and monay as the staple of siyaman.

Laglagan, birth of a fresh start

Laglagan means more than its English translation of “first death anniversary” of a loved one. It is also called babang-luksa or the end of grieving.

I learned more about laglagan last May 21 when my family observed the first year of Nanay’s passing. Every day for nine days before the date of my mother’s first year of death, a group of magdarasal (women in the barrio who have a devotion to praying for the soul of the departed) led by Ate Menay would come to the house to pray for Candida’s soul.

On the final day of the novena, May 21, the prayer was a bit longer than the days before. Ate Menay recited prayers in deep Tagalog and memorized Latin supplication. But even before the novena started, she asked my youngest brother Rod and me to have a change of clothes — from our mourning black shirts to white shirts. The black shirts she folded neatly. Midway though the novena, she crowned Rod and me with the folded black shirts. When the prayer for the soul of Nanay was done, Ate Menay asked Rod and me to take part in a simple ceremony of taking the shirts off our heads and dropping them on the floor. There was a thud of lightness in my heart when my black shirt hit the floor.

Laglag means to drop. Laglagan is symbolic that beginning that day, the exact day of the departed’s death anniversary, the veil of grief has fallen to give birth to a fresh start. Laglagan means to move on and wholeheartedly give the soul of the deceased to God.

After the laglagan came a feast in our backyard. There were lechon and other dishes that Nanay would have cooked if she were alive. Friends and relatives and practically the neighborhood were invited to the feast. An aunt said ALL the food must be finished by 12 noon. It was a superstitious belief that it was bad luck not to consume or give away the food by noontime.

Not fearing to sound heretic, I whispered to my aunt that Nanay, when she was still alive, did not fully subscribe to the idea of leaving no food at home even after 12 noon. The practical Candida saved food for her loved ones during the laglagan for my father (because some members of her family were coming home in the evening). She lived 14 years more before following her husband in heaven.

So my aunt saved food during Nanay’s laglagan. And I still wear black. Grieving has no expiration date.