Filipino Heritage Festival celebrations

This month of May marks the Filipino Heritage Festival. In a previous column this month, we talked about historical places and landmarks in our country, like the Banaue Rice Terraces, to evoke the Filipino’s consciousness and pride for the legacies our ancestors left us. We cannot let the month end without recognizing the work of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in cooperation with the Department of Tourism, local government units, private agencies, Filipino artists and craftsmen, to celebrate our historical landmarks and traditions. NCCA leads the conduct of a series of events in various provinces that includes a festival of exhibits and performances. With the theme “Philippine Epics”, the heritage festival showcased age-old chants and oral traditions that talk of life, death, love and heroism. One of these epics, Darangen ni Bantugen, a Maranao chant, was one of 43 declared by Unesco as “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritages of Humanity”. It was chanted in Cagayan de Oro City where the Heritage Festival officially opened this year. Darangen ni Bantugen was also presented at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in dance form by the Philippine Ballet Theatre. Balagtasan, the Filipino art of extemporaneous debating in verse, originated by Francisco Baltazar or Balagtas, a preeminent Tagalog poet and author of Florante at Laura, was featured as a competition in Bulacan, Makati and Quezon City.

The festival of exhibits features historic landmarks such as the heritage houses and churches in traditional towns of Sariaya and Tayabas in Quezon Province, the lighthouses of Laoag and Bohol and the Philippine colonial bridges of Marikina and Laguna. Private institutions like the SM Mall of Asia showcases Filipino artifacts in Sinauna, the Ayala Museum features Bohol’s painted ceilings, while the Intercontinental and Mandarin Hotels will feature original Filipino culinary delights. In CAP Building Leyte, the Pintados culture and the mat (banig) exhibit will be featured. Cebu will interpret Komedya Linambay and Negros Occidental will parade elegant ballgowns from the treasure trove from the days of the sugar plantation fortunes.

In Manila, the intricately painted ceilings and walls of the San Beda Abbey Church in Mendiola, will be featured as Dom Bernardo, a Benedictine priest who is also an architect and art connoisseur, will conduct a tour and talk about its history. San Sebastian Church, the historic church made of fabricated steel pieces which were brought in piece by piece from Europe, as well as the Santa Ana Church will be open for guided tours and narrations of their origin and history. The Philippine Youth Symphony Band will play a concert at the end of the tour. Binondo’s participation will, of course, center on the rich Chinese influence on Philippine culture and business.

And, of course, the month of May will not be complete without Flores de Mayo, a flower festival which historically commemorates the virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This culminates in a Santacruzan from Malate Church with well-known designer Ben Farrales giving importance to the events.

The closing ceremonies for the sixth annual celebration of Heritage Month will be held in Dumaguete City and Bais from May 29 to 31. The month-long exhibits is topped by visits to the first American university in the Philippines, Silliman University and the Dumaguete Bell Tower at center stage.

History is to a nation what memory is to the individual. What we are today as a people and what our nation has now become is made up of all these rich legacy from the past. We hope we in the present generation can manage to leave behind more treasures of events and beginnings that our children and grandchildren can also be proud of one day.