Peaceful and orderly All Souls’ and Saints’ Days

We were very pleased that US President George W. Bush’s state visit was peaceful and orderly. There were demonstrations but they were kept at bay. We are just as glad that All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days were observed very peacefully and very orderly. When we say orderly, we have to start with the very unusual heavy traffic in all roads that lead to the cemetery. Here we must commend our law enforcers.

This is not to say that there was no killing during the two-day holyday. In Mala-bon, Alejandro Borral was gunned down by his neighbor and it was all because Borral was having a boisterous drinking session with a friend. A neighbor asked them to lower their voices and Borral told him to go to the cemetery if he wanted to sleep in peace. The remarked angered the neighbor who went home, got his homemade .38 caliber revolver and shot Borral dead. So it was Borral who ended up in the cemetery and right on All Souls’ Day.

There were also a freak accident in Mandaluyong where a jeep fell into a 100-foot excavation hole at a construction site killing nine of its passengers and injuring five of its passengers.

But the celebrations in the cemeteries were all very peaceful. Fiestas are our highest community expressions and All Souls’ and Saints’ Days are unique because they are commemorated in cemeteries and are not from a particular town or city, but come from different parts of the country. What they have in common is that their dearly departed are all buried in the same cemetery.

When I was a boy we used to commemorate All Saints’ Day by playing riddles involving the Saints. One that I remember is: Who is the saint that is a pair? Sandallas. And All Souls’ Day we spent gathering melted wax from the candles and forming them into figures.

We spent last All Souls’ visiting several cemeteries – the cemetery where our parents are buried and the Libingan ng Mga Bayani where the former First Lady Eva Macapagal is buried. By sheer coincidence Doña Eva was born on All Saints’ Day and her friends continue to celebrate her birthday.

All the cemeteries were crowded. But, again, we commend our law enforcers for the way they handled the traffic on all roads going to the cemeteries and the way they insured that the celebrations in all the cemeteries would be peaceful and orderly.

That is what we need most in our troubled times – peace and order. Some foreign countries were predicting that terrorists would launch attacks in the Philippines. We think that the fact that our law enforcers were able to insure peace during the Bush visit and All Saints’ and Souls’ Days shows that we can cope with the terrorist threat. We must keep guard and be on constant alert.