The Sinulog is in Us All

I WAS not born to dance the Sinulog, but it is not what matters; it is not even the pomp and the grandeur associated with the celebration. It is something much more personal, which I realized through my work.

For years I had been covering the Sinulog writing for a Cebu paper, often going home at past one in the morning so readers would know the next day the result of the Grand Parade.

I must say it was a tough task. Not only that I had to keep a sharp eye for sidelights to pen a sidebar story on, I also had to endure watching the whole spectacle unfold, starting from the opening speeches in the early morning to the fireworks in the night.

It is a whole different experience if you are there at the grandstand just enjoying the presentations compared to actually keeping attention to all the details, including which contingent recycled costumes and which mimicked the steps of another, so I can write a more engaging story despite time being not on my side.

I was not there as a tourist or mere spectator but as a chronicler.

That is why it was normal after all the dancers, floats, higantes and puppets have paraded before me to see dizzying colors when I close my eyes.

The work does not stop there, because we had to huddle, dead tired, in a room below the bleachers late into the night to wait for the judges to hand down the verdict.

We had to ask them why this contingent won and not this, as it happened to be the crowd favorite and not another. We had to ask questions we think readers might have, and this requires a clear mind despite the fatigue.  

Afterwards, coupled with the exhilaration of being among the handful who knew firsthand the results, was the euphoria of finally having the day end, so I can cover the awarding ceremony the next day. 

I had endured it, though, for half a decade or so. And it was not about being compelled due to the demands of the job. It was not about not having the option to say no.

It was because I had come to see it as my tribute to the Sto. Niňo-- as my little way of showing gratitude for the blessings.

An interview with the chairman of the panel of judges one time made it so. What he most wanted to see and pay attention to more importantly is how each dancing contingent display the reverence for the Holy Child.

“I like to see them dance in genuine homage to the Sto. Niňo, and not execute their steps flawlessly with the image merely as part of their props,” he said.

That was enough to give me pause and look into the meaning of all that I was doing every third Sunday of January; and from that moment on, my whole perspective of the job changed.

I was no longer bothered by the dizzying colors, by the heat and by the long hours of sitting there like a librarian cataloguing masterpieces.

Writing for the newspaper became my own way of venerating the Baby Jesus, my opportunity to show devotion, my thanksgiving.

Being there was no more about seeing and writing, or watching and enjoying, but of helping glorify the Child Jesus through the Sinulog.

In the same vein, those who dance the Sinulog said it is neither about staging a show nor winning the top plum.  Past winners could attest they spent much more compared to the cash prizes they received.

Dancers I spoke with, while there may be those who say it was required of them by their school, likewise said the Sinulog is like a personal journey through the heat and the rain, like a cleansing of sort after a ritual of praise through the dance.

It is because the Sinulog is really about offering what you do to glorify the Holy Child, no matter how small or insignificant you may think it is.

I have left my job early last year to embark on another calling outside the country and will miss the Sinulog this year. 

But I will have my own in this foreign and unfamiliar country I found myself in.

I still cannot dance the Sinulog, but I know by heart what it is, and in my mind I am already doing the trademark two steps forward, one step back, shouting “Pit Senyor!”  

I am a Coward

I am too cowardly to take my own life.

This is what I told myself after reading an article about a Cebu, Philippines policeman who killed himself over, according to initial reports, family and financial problems.

The homicide investigator said the poor guy's woes must have stacked up so much that he felt he had no other recourse.

Many would say it was a cowardly act.  For me, though, taking your own life takes great courage, a whole lot of it.  

If it boils down to taking a life just to defend myself and my family, I can do it. I would willingly and obligingly do it.  

But to send my soul to hell with my own hands?  I am too much of a coward to do so, and it is not because I do not want to be roasted alive with the lawyers. (Or was it "with the liars?" Not sure which.)

I would rather face those tribulations than knife myself to death, or shoot a bullet into my temple, or jump from a bridge, or suddenly dash into the path of an oncoming car or a train, among other ways to putting an end to a pathetic existence.  

I am just too much of a coward to do any one of them.

I just could not imagine how excruciating the pain can be, when that knife plunges into your gut, or when that bullet carves a path from one side of the head to the other, or when your bones break into pieces after the fall, or when your face is smashed to a pulp by the hood of the car or the front of the train. I shudder even at the thought of it.

I am just a coward; and I  cannot even put a brave face and pretend I am one courageous fellow.

Because I am a coward, not fearless enough to face the pain when suicide presents itself as the only action to take, I instead believe that all problems have their solutions, and that there is a rainbow always after the rain (even if it is not really the case).

I have my own share of aches and heartbreaks, of failures and downfalls, when the world seemed to be conspiring against me, when it seemed there is no one to turn to. 

Heck, my wife even has to frantically look for someone to borrow money from for our children's tuition because I have nothing to send them from abroad and exams are already tomorrow.

I agonized over the fact that my so wonderful wife had to go through the experience, which is in addition to the fear that anytime somebody will come and demolish the whole neighborhood back home, because a private claimant won the court battle over ownership of the land.  

I always fear for my family, and the feeling is eating on me each waking moment.

I am, however, too much of a coward to jump from the 19th floor of the building I am currently living in to make that feeling go away.

That is why I salute that policeman and other suicides for having the courage to kill themselves.

One thing I don't understand, though, is why they do so when, in my experience, the problems I faced always, in the end, have their way of sorting out?

Maybe, I am just one lucky coward.