A cultural remnant from the Spanish colonisation of the Philippines is the popular Fiesta.
When the Spanish colonised the Philippines, they organised the villages and towns and all kinds of government administrations into parishes and Diocese. In the normal Roman Catholic manner, each parish and Diocese would have their own patron saint. Most villages, many towns and cities and even the smaller barangays, (smaller local government units) would be named for their patron saint, hence the profusion of religious names of places such as San Juan (Saint John), San Pablo (St. Paul), San Pedro (saint Peter) and a host of others.
Each saint has their own feast day assigned to them in the Church calendar, and so each local government unit has their corresponding time of fiesta when they celebrate the feast day of their saint. This is a major annual event for all administrative areas which each parish, City, Town, village and barangay will host in their turn.
The people of the area plan for this special event months in advance, fattening up pigs, chickens and whatever animals will be “sacrificed” for the feast. There will be much planning for special sporting or social events, for the biggest event of the local calendar year. No expense is spared by all families and citizens so they can host their friends, neighbours and relatives from near and far to feast with them on these special days.
So what this means for the whole population of the area is party, party party! The local government as well as churches prepare events over this time, which will often include a disco, sometimes a talent contest, often special cockfighting events with increased prizes and of course for the churches extra masses and street processions dedicated to the patron saint.
If one is invited to a fiesta, it’s often not only one place where you will visit and dine, but often you will be invited to home after home, family to family until often one is so stuffed full (busog,) that it’s hard to move! This is a time when families come together in numbers, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and grandchildren (and great grandchildren) and feast on love, friendship and good food and drink. If you are not a family member, you are virtually granted honourary family status during the fiesta so you can feel very much at home anywhere you go.
Neighborhoods are decorated (often with recycled plastics) and some municipalities or local government units (LGU’s) run competitions for the best decorations and cleanest neighborhoods.
The staple food will be the lechon (pig cooked slowly over coals), chicken, fish cooked in various ways, and many kinds of sweets, many based on sweet, sticky rice or cassava.
Drinks will be plentiful, soft drinks, and of course the usual San Miguel beer, Red Horse beer, and harder drinks – to give you confidence when the microphone is passed around so you can join videoke. Filipinos LOVE to sing, and there is no better place to sing than in a home where fiesta is happening. By the end of fiesta, all will be satiated with good food and drink, heads ringing with enthusiastic conversation and voices hoarse with singing. A good time is had by all!
There is never a dull moment at fiesta, it is a time of festival, family and food which will make you feel welcome and part of the wonderful celebration that is the Philippine Fiesta!
Photo credits:
Attending mass, Carlo Acutis Baliwag Fiesta 37.jpg RamaGaspar, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Cassava cake (Philippines) 4.jpg Obsidian Soul, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Puto in banana leaf.jpg Obsidi♠nSoul, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
All other photographs mine.