Monday is Halloween

The Americans brought two of their religious feasts to the Philippines – Saint Valentine’s Day and Halloween. Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has declared this Monday as a non-working holiday but it was not because it is a religious feast but in order to allow the people to leave to their respective provinces so they may celebrate All Saints’ Day in the cemeteries where their dearly departed are buried. It is the day when cemeteries take a fiesta atmosphere. All Souls’ Day is actually the feast for all the departed souls but the people start going to the cemeteries the day before in order to clean the tombs of their departed loved ones. It is good for everyone to go to the cemetery where their loved ones are buried at least once a year if only to remind them that the cemetery is also their ultimate place. In the beginning, the cemeteries were just the enclosed ground around a church. Now, we have mausoleums.

Some Metro Manila Mayors have gone out of their way to make All Saints’ Day truly meaningful. Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, for instance, has taken steps to ensure that traffic leading to cemeteries will be properly supervised and more important that there would be security checks at the entrance of cemeteries and police presence to safeguard the people visiting the graves from terrorists. Terrorists always like to be where there is a big crowd. He has also provided wheelchairs for the disabled and a special flower store called Bulaklakan ng Maynila in Sampaloc for those who want to remember their loved ones with flowers.

The Philippine National Police is concerned not only for the safety of the cemetery visitors, but the homes they leave behind. PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil has "Oplan Kaluluwa 2005". He has asked the people to make doubly sure not to leave their homes unattended and at the same time he has alerted the neighborhood policemen to be extra alert.

All Saints’ Day is actually a feast to honor all saints particularly the ones who have not had a special day in the church calendar. But here, All Souls’ Day has literally upstaged All Saints.

A French proverb defines the dead as "Those who have neither relatives nor friends." That is not true in the Philippines. Here the dead spend at least one day a year with friends and relatives at their graves. The truth is that we don’t believe that when people die, they cease to exist. No! They just move to a higher world. As for the living, the grave is what they ultimately end up owning. And each passing day, bring us closer to our grave. So what we see in the cemetery is our future.