Carpooling Loonies
No Samhain for Capiznons?
(First of two parts)
I’ve been receiving mails about the ill-timed trick or treating in Roxas City. A group of people, quick on the uptake, I should say, are organizing a festival now called Lupad Capiznon, from the original Aswang Festival, after the name was changed three times at the church’s ‘appeal’. The very first Aswang Festival was held last year, a weekend before the 1st of November and everything seemed to have gone well, and even helped in the promotion of the city’s tourism. According to a source (writing this actually makes me feel like a pro…I better do this more often), the festival engendered the increase in hotel room accommodations to ten percent (10%) and there was a whopping 40% increase in visitor arrivals as recorded by the airline company of Roxas City. Did the Church fail to check on that before they modified 23 things (and then some) about the festival? Because tubes always have leaks somewhere, I found out that there weren’t just 13 things the Church had changed about the festival. Ben stuck his head out from the tube and said, “Twenty-three, not thirteen.” Maybe one of these days I can have coffee (and tiramisu and a thousand other delights) with the members of Dugo Capiznon to know how high they have flown to save the festival… and later on a pricey meal with the big men of the church to find out what really is worrying them about the ingenious Aswang Festival.
I don’t want to say people are angry because of the developing discord between the Church and some people (by ‘some people’ I mean them who feel their artistry is being limited by suppressive rules). I would rather say this is leaving a lot of people in muddle because all they want is a celebration of their culture and yet a ‘force’ out there wants to circumscribe it. More than just a hot stuff in the news, what is happening in Roxas City is part of ancient history happening all over again, and the ones concerned are singing a very familiar tune.
The stanch association of supernatural beings and Capiz became known the world over because anywhere a Capiznon goes, he brings with him the tales of winged beings who leave half of their bodies at home while they hunt for flesh and blood deep into the night. The more horrific the stories are, the more in-demand they become. Bedtime stories about aswangs (the celebrity among supernatural beings) are told over and over again and nobody gets tired of them. An aswang cannot depart from this life unless he or she is able to pass on his or her special power to a kin. This means we will never hear the end of the tale.
It’s beginning to rain hard. I would love to watch it for a while. You can read the rest of this on the October 24 issue. If you have original horror stories and would like to share them with me, please e-mail me at jinki_young@yahoo.com My husband, son and I do a lot of story telling after we turn off the lights at night.