Filipinos sing, share festive foods, teach old ways to young

National Catholic Reporter, August 14, 1998 by Leslie Wirpsa

LOS ANGELES -- In front of an altar filled with statues of Mary and Jesus and images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, elderly Filipino women sang the people's version of the story of Christ's suffering.

The singing began at 11 a.m. on Maundy Thursday and continued nonstop until the morning of Good Friday with Filipinos from all over this city arriving to take turns singing the verses.

It was a human, conversational narrative, written by lay people, that gave an easy informality to the biblical story. The cadence, rhythms and melodies varied, marking the different regions and cultures of the Philippines represented by the participants.

This display of Filipino popular religion, which historically bridged indigenous spirituality and Spanish colonial Catholicism in the Philippines, is indicative of the kind of popular religion that is now creating new bonds in multicultural Los Angeles.

Filipino faith is also carving a space here for the 250,000-member community, the largest concentration of Filipinos outside of Manila, to nourish its culture and share them with the broader church.

Sunday Filipino services often may be "more Roman than the Romans," in the words of Irma Isip, archdiocesan consultant for religious education from the Asian-Pacific perspective. But in home worship and gatherings, in the religious fiestas such as the Christmas Simbang Gabi or the Easter Salubong dawn celebration, the expressions of the pageantry and faith rituals of the indigenous cultures of Filipino history are being revived.

In their culture

"The biggest pastoral need of the Filipinos" is to "express themselves in their own culture," said Fr. Dan Bugayong, a priest at St. Philomena Parish in Carson, Calif., a congregation that is 75 percent Filipino. "Then they can share this gift ... with other cultures."

The richness of Filipino culture and faith -- and the values of family and community -- were evident at the home worship gathering in central Los Angeles when members of the community gathered to sing, in Tagalog, the story of the life and Passion of Christ.

The elders were soon joined by a dozen or so members of a charismatic youth group. "Sometimes," Isip said, "the youth rhythms resemble rap!" That night, however, the youth concentrated on learning the patterns sung by their elders, smiling when their teachers chided them for singing too fast. "It's their first time," one woman said.

For many of these young people, born in the United States, the singing of the Passion provided a lesson in reading Tagalog as well in the Catholic faith.

Absent from this celebration were the silence and fasting of a more Western expression of Catholic Holy Week. "Easter is a celebration of death and life. This is supposed to be a nice quiet time, but we cannot stay quiet. We continue to sing and dance, and it is not fair to sing and not to eat," Isip explained, approaching a huge table in the kitchen laden with food.

As the singers took turns away from the narration to savor big pots of milk-fish with onions, ginger and garlic, spicy catfish in broth, and spaghetti and garlic bread, a woman burst into the kitchen. "Quick! I need another tone," she said.

The feast stopped until her companions helped her find a new pitch and rhythm to transmit the ambiguity felt by Pilate and the taunting of his soldiers.

Another woman stomped rhythmically into the kitchen bearing a huge tray stacked with saping saping, a thick, gooey rice dessert of three tiers of color.

"We don't want [these customs] to die. This is why we are trying to teach the youth," said Lola Conching, 74, who is something of a legend in town.

Naty Jimenez, the host of the gathering, said it is important that Filipino youth be raised in the Christian life. `The children will be given a good foundation for when they mingle with different people in different ways. And even if they mix with many kinds of people, they are strong," she said.

Twenty-two-year-old Cory Abad, a student at Santa Monica College, said, "We want to praise and thank the Lord. This group is really different and special. We are religious, but we go out together. It's like a family. These are my brothers and sisters. My other friends just want to have fun, but here we know what's right and wrong."

Bugayong said such strength of faith and culture has brought many Filipino Catholics in Los Angeles not only to the point of "being aware of their presence as a community," but to a place of "sharing these gifts so they can help bring in a multicultural parish."

"Spirituality is our individual way of experiencing our relationship with God," he said. "We are born in different places at different times. I don't think God expects us to express our faith in just one mode. I have my own way, and it depends on my background, what I've been through as a [member of a] race, a people, a nation," he said. "You feel much more comfortable in your relationship with God expressing yourself in that way. It's something natural. It's part of being born and reared in that culture."