“ALL SAINTS’ DAY”

(Memories from November 3, 2012 at 10:45am)

It was a big treat for us in the labor force for this year’s “Halloween” as it was a long break again. Thanks to the government’s trick of kowtowing to religious caprices and whims.

I guess only a few would care to give even a passing thought about the “All Saints’ Day’s” origin or spend a serious time for research about the matter. It was the brainchild of the friars after their child's play like brainstorming on what feast to concoct as income-augmenter when they ran out of saints to be named after.

And it clicked. That’s why there are “treat” and “trick” (Viva España! Viva Damaso! Viva Rey Felipe Segundo!).

Well, it’s already been cultivated in our culture a long time ago, thus even the “Illuminati” amongst us today have nothing anymore they can do. They now have no choice but to go with the flow, just seeing to it that before they’d be offered to “idols,” they’ve already munched the “suman,” “baye-baye” and “puto.”

And I reluctantly admit that I enjoyed in childhood the “All Saints’ Day.” I enjoyed because it justified my theft and robbery then even for just one day. That was during the period when the victims just laughed out loud after discovering the crime of fashion. Today, if perpetrators got caught even during the night of celebration will surely be prosecuted in the court of law of the nation.

I remember in Kirayan yesterday, from Zone One to Zone Three we hopped in from one house to another during the night just to taste every household’s “baye-baye.” And the morning after, it was not uncommon knowledge that almost all C.R’s were long engaged and Diatabs were swiftly swallowed by everybody.

Today, instead of Diatabs like then, it’s Kremil-S that most people are taking in. It’s because stomach discomfort is now due to a scarcity of food thus it’s the ulcer that causes the pain. And that makes the day after, the “All Souls’ Day” a literal “All Souls’ Day,” for your thin body now looks like a soul as it can’t have now a complete meal of three times a day.

The only sad moment regarding “All Saints’ Day” is to meet a child in the night along the way, and as fear registered on his face obviously, he begged you to remove your mask so scary. And suddenly you feel so mad as he asks, because in troth and fact, you’re not wearing any mask.