THE running joke is that we—seniors, people of the golden sunset—are on a predeparture lounge waiting for our respective flights on a one-way ticket to the blue yonder.
Unfortunately, we shall also be departing with the baggage that carries our cultural heritage and legacy. Our generation (’50s and ’60s) are the last bearers of the old Filipino society.
This thought hit me when our grandchildren would not eat the ginataang bilo-bilo, tinumis (dinuguan), and bibingka (rice cakes) that we brought from the province recently. One look at the tinumis and they were horrified. I just shook my head, resigned to the fact that these kids belong to a generation continuously fed and nurtured on French fries, hamburgers, fried chicken, spaghetti, pizza pies, shakes and sundaes.
I belong to the “native kakanin” generation, the last batch to witness our lolos and lolas extract “gata” or coconut milk by using a heavy stone grinder, or bake bibingka made from a mixture of galapong and coconut milk, sugar and margarine, which is oured on a clay pot lined with precut banana leaf and heated with lit uling (charcoals) placed below and above the clay pot to evenly cook the mixture.
Some things cannot be taken out of our generation’s DNA. For we still love to eat tinapa or tuyo with fresh raw tomatoes or salted eggs, and occasionally pour pure fresh carabao milk over our rice, sprinkled with a pinch of salt. Once in a while, I sneak into a Balot-balot restaurant where they serve meals wrapped in banana leaves.
Many of us consider our favorite past time to be drinking barako coffee or thick tsokolate with suman or other native rice cakes.
In time past, Filipino farmers in tradition-bound barrios didn’t have “coffee breaks.” What they had was a “betel break,” which afforded them respite and provided occasion for light banter between periods of serious work. As a boy, I sat fascinated, watching my forebears and old neighbors chew betel leaves and occasionally spit out dark-red saliva.
In fact, very few young people drank coffee during our time. Now millennials and college students flock to fancy coffee shops for their daily fix of latte or cappuccino.
We are the last generation to make our own toys, crafted from bamboo, empty sardine cans or discarded pieces of wood. We played creative games in which we had no need for expensive gadgets. As children, we played street games such as patintero, luksong baka, tumbang preso and sawsaw suka on full-moon nights. By daylight, during non-school days, the girls would play piko or jacks, while boys would play holen, goma (rubber band) or teks, or sometimes, labanan ng gagamba.
When we went to church, we had to dress in our Sunday best, and women and girls wore veils over their heads. If you wore sneakers or sandals to Mass, your elders would give you a disapproving frown.
To the student of Philippine society and culture, this is your chance to interview us, for we grew up in a bygone era, a culture that is now slowly fading, fated to oblivion, soon to be read only in cultural anthropology books. This is the time to extract the past before our memory completely gives out.
Someone used the term “culture bearer,” and I would like to appropriate it for our generation. Our cultural heritage runs through us. We are living treasures and holders of “sacred” traditions. So, before the “mano po” is finally and totally replaced by beso-beso, I urge my generation to become active bearers and conveyors of tradition and culture.
My humble suggestion is to pick a grandchild who seems most interested or receptive to hearing our stories and adventurous enough to eat the traditional delicacies and native treats such as puto and kutsinta, ginataang mais or ube, sapin sapin, maja blanca, palitaw or other local variations, all of which are an integral part of Filipino food culture.
Get him or her to try traditional snacks like biscocho, sampaloc or camachile, pilipit, rosquillos, barquilos, puto seko, uraro, broas, pacencia, lengua de gato, lubid lubid, sanikulas, otap or pop rice ball and ampaw.
Introduce your grandchild to the intellectual pleasure of playing metaphorical and allegorical folk riddles such as bugtong or salawikain. Read aloud the poem “Ang Pamana” of Jose Corazon de Jesus, which was a favorite declamation piece of students of our generation. Let him feel the poignancy of a son’s tender declaration of gratitude and love for his parent, a family value that resonates deeply in every true Filipino.
Take them to Paete, Laguna, to see toys being crafted by hand out of paper, or to Betis, Pampanga, to marvel at the skills of native woodcraftsmen. Bring them to Quiapo to see the Black Nazarene and explain to them the complexity of folk Christianity, as well as the practices and expressions of the Filipino’s simple faith.
These are random suggestions at the top of my head, but my point is to make an effort to instill in them an appreciation and a sense of pride in our native cultural heritage.
Do not be like some members of our generation who baldly proclaim that they are “Proud to be American” on their Facebook postings, even boasting that their grand kids speak fluent English with an American twang, but cannot speak a single Filipino word. Ashamed to have Filipino roots or ancestry, these naturalized Americans have never sparked interest in the minds of their Fil-Am offsprings about the heritage of their mother country, but choose instead to observe and celebrate traditional American rituals and festivities such as Thanksgiving or July 4 Independence Day in their homes.
When I visited my wife’s ancestral home over the weekend, I spent some time looking intently at the sepia-tinted pictures of her family ancestors. How youthful they looked in the photographs. It was like an eternal present for them, but then I realized that when they posed for the camera, their present then had already slipped into the past. It’s as if the picture says to us now: When this you see, think about me. Memento mortuis.
As the last link to our forefathers, we owe it to them to pass on the cultural heritage to the present and coming generation. Let us build on what they have bequeathed us. For it is this heritage, this handed-down treasure chest of practices and knowledge that marks our distinctive identity as a people. Not frappuccino, or hamburgers or French fries, nor sneakers, hoodies and signature denims.
Let us honor the creativity and craftsmanship of our ancestors, as well as their culinary ingenuity and resourcefulness. Memento traditionis culturae.