The dark side of celebrating our 'fiesta'

The eminent Philippine STAR columnist Alejandro “Anding” Roces came up with a very nice and thorough two-part dissertation on one of the most enduring culture and traditions of the Filipino people, the “fiesta”, especially when he wrote, “Fiesta is our highest form of community expression. In its production, it exemplifies the talents and culture of the Filipino. The fiesta is Philippine culture and history in microcosm.” How true!

Mr. Roces added “The fiesta is one of the blocks upon which a community is built. There has to be a folk foundation, a binding force, upon which the structure of a nation is built. In other words, as Nick Joaquin says: “The local precedes the national; and it’s the town that gives birth to the nation.” Thank you Sir Anding for that beautiful piece on the fiesta, which if I may add, only a very few people know or realize that fiestas are the core of our domestic tourism. So allow me to join this discussion and refer you to the Sinulog or the fiesta of Cebu, which originally was celebrated only in Cebu and has now evolved into the nation’s number one domestic and foreign tourist attraction.

However in this modern age, there is a dark side to the holding of fiestas in our respective communities, which a lot of people have been complaining about, but they just can’t seem to find ways to stop it. Sure, it is an accepted norm that Filipinos, rich or poor, often spend more than they earn just to celebrate their town fiesta; however the advent of the karaoke machine and the discorral which has become an integral part of our fiesta atmosphere has made many fiestas, especially in small barangays or sitios abhorrent.

While fiestas are admittedly a time for reunions, prayer and merrymaking, somehow people get carried away and soon, you will not only hear the very loud prayers said over the loudspeaker, then it is followed by the occasional drunkard holding on to the microphone singing at the top of his voice his favorite song, so totally out of synch, it’s no longer music to your ears, but sheer noise. There ought to be a law that prohibits loud karaoke music being played outdoors and during fiesta, there should be a legal time limit like it should end by the stroke of midnight.

The same goes for the ever-present discorral, where the thump, thump, thump of the boom box with its ear splitting ultra high and ultra low decibel noise reverberates through the night, it could cause your heartbeat to skip a beat! Thanks to our fiesta, our society has become a very noisy one and somehow because this has become our current culture and tradition, people think or believe that it gives them right or the license to disturb other people, especially children in neighboring barangays who need to study or go sleep. They have thrown common decency and respect out of the window!

Worse of all, when you send for the police to ask the Barangay or Sitio leaders to tone down their discorral or the karaoke machine, the police seem helpless, as if they are no longer cloaked with the authority to keep the peace. Peace after all is simply… peace and quiet!

I live on the second hill behind the Cebu Provincial Capitol and therefore I have a commanding view of this part of Cebu City and whenever a particular Barangay holds its fiesta, I can hear it from more than a kilometer away. Few people realize that it is a man’s Human Right to have some kind of peace and quiet within the confines of his home.

But then, all laws are thrown out of the window when a community celebrates its fiesta and you end up suffering throughout the evening all the way to the wee hours of dawn. What is downright frustrating is that, our lawmakers can’t seem to put a stop to this racket, because they are politicians and depend largely on the barangays to deliver the votes. So don’t expect any help from your local politico to keep your neighborhood quiet.

At this point, we can only hope that under the new Aquino administration, he can ordain something about this problem. If he can ask everyone to obey traffic rules because even the President stops for a traffic light, then there is hope that a Pres. Noynoy would be able to do something about this problem, because the authorities are totally helpless on this issue.

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I just received a short goodbye note coming from our good friend, Canadian Ambassador Robert Desjardins that his stint as Ambassador is coming to an end. Wow! How time flies indeed and once more, a good friend leaves us with pleasant memories and unforgettable friendship. Thanks to Honorary Canadian Consul Robert Lee, I have become close to two Canadian Ambassadors, first was Amb. Peter Sutherland and his successor Amb. Robert Desjardins. All I can say is good luck on your next assignment my friend, Bon Voyage and Au plaisir de vous revoir… until we meet again.

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