By David Haldane
May 16, 2018
It seemed more like a birthday than a funeral. Resting in a raised wooden coffin with arms folded and eyes closed, the corpse looked like the guest of honor awaiting her party surprise. She was wearing what must have been her finest white blouse. But instead of lighting candles on a cake, the other guests – mostly children – lay sprawled out before her engrossed in a game of cards.
We didn’t know these people. In fact, we had happened on their house while visiting relatives in Navotas, a shabby port city north of Manila. Seeing the door open and the crowd inside, we had mistaken the place for a club and wandered in looking for drinks. I don’t remember how my camera got involved, but before long I was snapping pictures of the deceased’s husband and young daughter posing proudly by her corpse. Later we got the full story; the family had just enough money for the coffin, but not for the burial. So, they were holding what we in the West might call an “open house,” soliciting donations from relatives and friends. After the picture-taking and cokes, we made a small donation and bid them adieu.
I remember other unlikely encounters involving death in the Philippines. One happened in General Luna, a town on Siargao Island, where we came upon a restaurant that looked like it was open. Instead of entertaining customers, however, the owner stood against a far wall, welcoming well-wishers there to see her dead 12-year-old daughter laid out on chairs. A few years later when my wife’s aunt died in her home village of Caridad, we dropped by to drink rum with relatives as the old woman reposed amid flowers on the dining room table.
What struck me about these scenes was how public they were. In the West, about the only time you see a dead body, if ever, is in a formal setting at a church or funeral parlor. And when people speak of death, it is only in hushed tones and somber whispers.
In the Philippines, it’s different; death is part of life. Instead of hiding a corpse, you pose with it for pictures. And instead of whispering, you converse with your neighbors over beer.
It’s not hard to understand why this is so. Filipinos, for the most part, are deeply religious Catholics, so perhaps it reflects their belief in an afterlife and the survival of the soul. In a larger context, it is undoubtedly indicative of the strong influence of Hispanic culture wherein death is sometimes embraced and even celebrated as in Mexico’s Day of the Dead.
In the Philippines, I believe, poverty also plays a role. As does the relative lack of infrastructure, emergency services, proximate healthcare and institutionalized caregiving. I have spent most of my 69 years in the United States and never actually witnessed someone die. My Filipino wife, on the other hand, has had an uncle die in her arms after being shot by an anonymous intruder and been called upon to identify drowned relatives laid out in a gymnasium after their ferry sank. And all this by the time she was 24.
The country’s uncanny familiarity with death was driven home to me by another experience on that same trip to Navotas. Sauntering around town, we found a cemetery with long-abandoned burial vaults stacked atop each other like broken toys. And living in their midst, as if in an exclusive condominium complex, an enclave of squatters went about their daily lives.
A young girl attended a Kool Aid stand selling refreshments among the graves. A group of boys played basketball in a makeshift court surrounded by tombs. And a smiling teenager proudly showed off his “room,” barely aware of the names inscribed in its floor.
What does all this mean to me? I think it has something to do with the way I feel in the Philippines and why I keep coming back. There’s a kind of wildness here, an unpredictability, a sense that anything can happen and often does. Kind of like, I imagine, living in the Old West. And here’s the irony; being surrounded by all this death somehow makes me feel more alive.
Also published in Mindanao Gold Star Daily
A former Los Angeles Times staff writer and winner of a 2018 Golden Mike award in radio broadcast journalism, David Haldane fell in love with the Philippines on his first visit there in 2003. A few visits later, he also fell in love with the beautiful young Filipina to whom he is now married and, with whom, he has returned many times. David has written extensively about his experiences in the Philippines for several publications including Orange Coast and Islands Magazine. Today he and Ivy, along with their eight-year-old son, Isaac, divide their time between homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Surigao City, Philippines. His award-winning memoir, Nazis & Nudists, recounts, among other things, the courtship of Ivy and finding a place to call home. For David that turned out to be at the tip of a peninsula marking the gateway to Mindanao where he and Ivy are building their dream home next to a lighthouse overlooking the sea. This blog is the ongoing chronicle of that adventure.
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22 Comments
David: Nice article and thoughts about a subject that we all see here in the Philippines pretty regularly. I would say at least three times a week, a funeral procession goes by on the main street outside our housing complex. These can be processions of 20 to 200 people; as you said, it is a combination wake and celebration of sorts. I think the fact that death is right out front here is a lot healthier than how it is sort of hidden away and taboo in the US. I enjoyed your writing. -Rob
Interesting article, and I could be wrong but I think the way death is handled here is similar to the way it is handled in Mexico, maybe the Spanish influence. More accepting, more at pease with the event. Not sure, I just wonder as I have gone with my wife to several wakes and funerals over the last 10 years along with to the 1 yr Anniversary of passing and then the yearly trip to the grave for prayers.
Interesting observations, David. I wonder if the scenes of death you described are culturally regional in practice, such as the restaurant owner welcoming well-wishers to see his dead 12-year-old daughter laid out on chairs, or the husband posing proudly for pictures beside the corpse of his wife.
My personal observations relating to death, specifically that of my mother who died in 2001 in barrio Salaza (Palauig, Zambales), were much more subdued in comparison, especially during the wake. During the funeral procession, however, it was a different story. The following is my recollection of events surrounding my mother’s wake and funeral, both somber and celebratory. (Brace yourself, David, this may very well be the longest comment to your article you’ll ever see) LOL
People who knew the “Happy Mother” – a nickname conferred on Mom by an appreciative barrio folk because of her philanthropic deeds – came from nearby barrios and towns to pay their last respects to a departed friend as she laid in her coffin in the living room of our house where the viewing was held.
The wake continued for five successive nights until all of Mom’s children arrived from the States. I remember arriving in Salaza from
Washington, D.C. at three o’clock in the morning in a hired cab directly to the province from the Manila international airport in record time to find our house and yard filled with people. Guests and relatives sat in silence around Mom’s coffin in the living room that was brightly lit with the funeral home-supplied electric candles, fanning themselves because of the heat emanating from the candles and speaking in hushed tones. Wreaths were all over the place.
It would be a few hours later after I had gone to bed in the next room when I heard for the first time the melancholic wail of mourning, the “dung-ao”, as it was called in Ilocano. The professional wailer was a woman from the barrio who was called upon on such occasions. The feeling that you get listening to the mournful cry of “dung-ao” is similar to that when you hear the sound of Taps. It gives you goose bumps.
Outside the house, a long roof made of bamboo and palm fronds called “pala-pala” was built on the yard to shelter the Botolan brass band and guests who stayed up all night playing cards. Except for brief breaks, the band played continuously during the night, while the young ladies of Salaza kept guests and the band supplied with coffee, piping-hot chicken noodle soup, and finger sandwiches prepared from a busy outdoor kitchen normally used during fiestas.
It was on the second morning of my arrival when Mom was finally laid to rest at the Palauig municipal cemetery, a seven-kilometer distance from our house in Salaza. At precisely seven in the morning on the day of Mom’s burial, the hired band from the neighboring town, roused from its sleep and having breakfasted, began a deafening rendition of John Phillip Souza marches to signal Mom’s departure from her house for the last time.
On the band’s cue, the coffin was brought down the stairs by a group of male relatives, preceded by the Ilocano tradition of throwing a freshly-decapitated, still-quivering chicken down the flight of stairs, thus signaling the start of a unique Salaza funeral procession, composed practically of the entire barrio and the high school’s student body.
The procession was a lively shuffle and dance, a rough imitation of the New Orleans-style funeral procession, down to where the procession came to almost a stand-still as the dancers leading the procession basically shuffled in place on the lively up tempo following the soft, somber portion of the band’s music. In yet another display of Filipino custom relating to funeral processions, coins are tossed at the procession from passing vehicles along the way, meant to help defray funeral costs regardless of need.
The procession stopped for a brief service at the Roman Catholic church in Salaza as the tradition required, then at the Aglipay Church in Palauig for the main service. Eulogy was delivered by my brother in Tagalog, after which, we, the children, unaccustomed to traditional practices, were nudged by relatives to walk toward the altar in a single file to present home-made offerings to the priest, and to receive the Holy Communion.
Throughout all these ceremonies and fascinating folk traditions, I was in a semi-stupor but managed to commit them all to memory. The feeling of loss had not yet set in – that would come much later after I had returned to the States.
For all the memories I had of Mom’s passing, there was one exceptionally memorable experience that stood above the rest. It was the beautiful rendition of “mananita” performed the night before Mom was buried. Beautiful and gut- wrenching, “mananita” was performed by a choir group singing religious hymns accompanied by guitar. Holding candles, the group stood on the darkened street in front of our house and began singing as though they were serenading. After the introductory hymns, the group filed up the stairs into the living room and gathered around Mom’s coffin. More hymns were sung and prayers were said. A few lines of the song I remember to this day: “For if you lose your Mother, you’ve lost the best one of all…”
An overwhelming sense of sadness permeated the crowded living room as women and men, young and old, wept unashamedly. At that point I was not yet completely affected, though I began to feel the beginnings of tears welling up in my eyes.
It was only when the “mananita” reached its crescendo, and when all the mourners approached the coffin one by one to pay their last respects and lay a flower on the coffin and kissed it with finality that I finally broke down, releasing pent up tears that had been building up since arriving in Salaza three days earlier.
John,
Thanks for sharing the traditions of your Mom’s funeral. It sounds like your Mom was a well liked and respected person. It’s always enjoyable reading about your life growing up in the provincial town of Salaza, Zambales. It seem like i alway’s learn something new from each post.
Thanks, Randy. Are you guys still living in Lipa, Batangas? Just heads up, you may be receiving an unexpected call in the not too distant future.
Btw, “mananita” in my story above is pronounced, “manyanita”. The proper spelling of this Spanish-derived word should have a diacritical tilde placed above the first letter, “n”.
John,
Yes, we are still in Lipa for now. Take care.
Wow, John, what a colorful description! Thank you…
Dave,
Good post. Really enjoyed reading about the different way’s funerals are held. Have only been to one funeral here and that was the death of one of our trike drivers in our subdivision. He was a veteran so they held the wake at the airbase across from our subdivision. But it was much more subdued than the funerals that you mentioned in your post.
Hi David,
I have found Filipino tradition surrounding death to be refreshing change from Western culture. The openness and celebratory aspect seem more natural.
Your additional comment about the Philippines being like the Old West (I use the term Wild West) is one that I have used to describe my experience there. Like you, I say it in a good way.
Hi David,
The bigger difference is what happens after the funeral. I would not be too surprised if caskets were rented and reused, but in the Philippines the dead are remembered. My wife’s father, Papa Leon, died 16 years ago. He was entombed in the nearest cemetery to my wife’s mom. My wife’s mom used to have to ride a jeepney to visit.
A small cemetery opened near Mama’s house about a half mile away. We moved Papa’s bones. They were exhumed and put in a wood box, built by my wife’s eldest brother. We had bought a tomb and Papa was placed in the tomb. Mama is almost 80 years old and almost blind, but she walks the half mile almost every day to visit and pray at her husband’s tomb. That is love!
Peace
Jay
Here in Cebu province, the death of a loved one puts pressure on relatives and townspeople to live up to the recent ceremonies of departed friends and neighbors. Funerals are now up there expense- wise with yearly extravigant fiesta celebrations .In the past a death usually meant a nine day novena, where a local woman for a fee, would provide a specific prayer session every night relating to the novena day. This still happens today too. In the past, relatives would take turns staying up as well as with some neighbors who would stay around day and night as a way of keeping the departed person company as they are in a state of purgatory until going on to heaven. As with customs today and in the past, everyone who comes to pay respect to the dead family member will give a “limos” or donation large or small, to help defray costs. Sometimes folks will provide snacks, coffee, crackers powdered drinks etc. for the nights ahead. If one family has the means, they might pay a priest to perform a mass in the house a couple of nights also.
Funeral packages have become quite costly and there is often competition among poor families to make a “showing” during the novena with a formal white casket, platform and electric candles. Quite often now there will be nightly card games/ gambling set up for townspeople to participate in. A portion of the take will go back to the family to defray the cost of these burial packages. Refreshments for mourners attending as well as the gamblers must be provided. Often times a rented portable canopy and plastic chairs are required. Many novenas have stretched out from the usual nine days to two weeks or more, so that expenses can eventually be met. Many of the gamblers do not even enter the house of the deceased, because funerals are the only legal designated time to have organized gambling. I find that the simple, more touching novenas of the past, have given way to more of a “circus” type scene, as the competition has dictated.
Here in the province, many more deaths seem to be taking place more often– due to cancer and may illnesses, drug and alcohol related deaths, and pedestrian and motorcycle/vehicular accidents. A sign of the times I guess.
Same here Bob–hope you are doing well.
It has been a little over four years now that we’ve been living here in Cebu. I’m still learning, but doing well.:)
Some good and insightful observations in both the article and the comments. So far, I’ve had only one experience with a strangers death. While driving, I encountered some folks with a rope strung across the public road. I stopped, and when they saw I was a foreigner, they made slicing hand movements at their throats, and called out “Dead, Sir!”. I suspect that was the extent of their English. I wasn’t particularly worried, because I could see the banner provided by the funeral home for the deceased. And they were accompanied by the barangay police. My companion was sound asleep, having driven the first leg of the trip. He awoke, and in typical incomplete sentences, he explained, “Sometimes they…….. Especially if there’s a rope……….. Just give them 5 pesos.”
Closer to home, we hold prayers in the farmhouse on the anniversary of my Father-in-Law’s death. Prayers are led by a couple of elderly ladies who have them committed to memory. We noticed that lots of people came and ate from our table, but only a few actually attended the prayers. My wife and her sisters made it known that we would feed only those who actually participated. The same people still come to pray. These folks are welcome to the bounty of our table.
Take care,
Pete
Interesting story, Pete. I think if I encountered a rope across the road manned by people making slicing motions across their throats, I would soil my pants.
ditto
Davis
As a former kid from Boston of Irish decent we had a joke: “What is the difference between a wedding and a funeral? One less drunk!”
Being Catholic I noticed a vast difference between, ours and friends who were Protestant or Jewish as to how we send the departed off. We Irish also play cards at the wake, and drink and eat.
My first funeral in the Philippines I thought the person’s name had to be Sean Fitzgerald!
The biggest thing (And I like it) was you don’t have to dress up except the WHITE T-SHIRT and shorts. It beats the wool suit with a vest and tie in Boston.
If dead, you suppose to be going to a better “Place” (We hope) so the Filipino’s and the Irish celebrate the departure.
David;
I apologize for getting your name wrong above, normally I only misspell my own name!
No worries, Paul. And I think it must have been a great asset for you in the Philippines, being of Irish descent. We have all heard of Irish wakes, of course, but I, for one, never made the association between Ireland and the Philippines until you brought it up. So thanks for that…
Hi David –
Johnny-come-lately here, as usual. LOL
To my dismay, I just realized that I failed to include the name of the song and its lyrics that was played by the brass band many times during my Mother’s wake and funeral as originally intended. In my mind, the inclusion would have lent significant substance to the story I posted several days ago. In the following days I debated whether to issue a correction or not. A part of me kept saying that it’s too late to rectify the mistake. But, try as I might, I couldn’t let it go.
I speak, of course, of the religious hymn, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. The song was played so many times by the brass band both during the wake and the funeral procession that it has left a deep impression on me. For the past 17 years since my mother passed away, I find myself humming it’s tune during moments of solitude.
If you don’t mind, David, here then is the correction to the paragraph in the story that alluded to the New Orleans-style funeral procession. This is the guitar version; however, I prefer the brass band version as it was, afterall, the Botolan brass band that initially brought this memorable song to my consciousness when I first heard it in 2001, the year Mom passed away.
.
“…with Mom’s closest friends leading the way and the band bringing up the rear, the procession was a lively shuffle and dance, a rough imitation of the New Orleans-style funeral procession, down to where the procession came to almost a stand-still as the dancers leading the procession basically shuffled in place on the lively up tempo following the soft, somber portion of the band’s rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFiMEV8DTOQ
Hi David –
To my dismay, I just realized that I failed to include the name of the song and its lyrics that was played by the brass band many times during my Mother’s wake and funeral as originally intended. In my mind, the inclusion would have lent significant substance to the story I posted several days ago. In the following days I debated whether to issue a correction or not. A part of me kept saying that it’s too late to rectify the mistake. But, try as I might, I couldn’t let it go.
I speak, of course, of the religious hymn, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. The song was played so many times by the brass band both during the wake and the funeral procession that it has left a deep impression on me. For the past 17 years since my mother passed away, I find myself humming it’s tune during moments of solitude.
If you don’t mind, David, here then is the correction to the paragraph in the story that alluded to the New Orleans-style funeral procession. This is the guitar version; however, I prefer the brass band version as it was, afterall, the Botolan brass band that initially brought it to my consciousness when I first heard it in 2001, the year Mom passed away.
.
“…with Mom’s closest friends leading the way and the band bringing up the rear, the procession was a lively shuffle and dance, a rough imitation of the New Orleans-style funeral procession, down to where the procession came to almost a stand-still as the dancers leading the procession basically shuffled in place on the lively up tempo following the soft, somber portion of the band’s rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFiMEV8DTOQ
Wow, John, what a beautiful piece of music! Thank you. And thanks for the beautifully written story, which I found inspiring….
Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.