Minalin's
Aguman Sanduk
by Robbie Tantingco
While
the country took a nap in the afternoon of New Year's Day to catch up on
sleep lost from the previous night's revelry, guess who quietly slipped
into a dress, put on a wig and high heels, and had a ball in the strets?
Why, it's the menfolk of Minalin, of course, celebrating their secret,
exclusive tradition called Aguman Sanduk - literally, the
fellowship of the ladle.
The
tradition started in 1934 when a group of Minalin men, drinking beer in
front of the old municipal hall, thought of a way to end the holiday
season with a bang. They cooked lelut manuk, then dared each other
to do the ultimate no-no among Kapampangan men: wear a dress and parade in
the street. Someone put a pillow under his shirt and feigned
pregnancy, another played a midwife and another an anxious husband; they
mounted a gareta and the show was on!
When
it was over in the evening, they did what Kapampangans of yore did best:
perform crissotan (verbal jousts where poets composed witty verses on the
spot). They also elected the first Aguman queen, Hilarion Serrano,
who was described as the pekamatsura (ugliest), maragul atian
(pot-bellied) and delanan ane lupa (literally, termite-ravaged
face, or pock-marked).
Through the years, Aguman Sanduk attracted the rich and famous to join the
cross-dressing festivities, including recently retired Sandiganbayan
Justice oberto Lagman, ConCon delegate Ricardo Sagmit, Jr. and provincial
board member Antonio Mercado. Town mayors were crowned Aguman queens
with their vice mayors standing by as consorts.
Today,
hundred of boys and men unabashedly turn transvestites on this first day
of the new year, unafraid of the superstition that what you do on New
Year's Day will be repeated throughout the year. There are
ten-year-olds wearing their sisters' school uniforms, teens with clutch
bags tucked under their armpits and shorts peeking below their
micro-minis, and old farmers and fishermen with sunburned skin and
toothless grins, their atrocious blond wigs covering their bald heads.
Surprisingly, there are no jeers from the crowd, considering Pinoy's
penchant for ridiculing transvestites; more surprisingly, there are no
gays among the cross-dressers. The womenfolk, instead of freaking
out, cheer their sons, husbands and fathers and grandfathers as their
freakish procession passes by.
The
fact that this tradition has endured for almost 70 years now, surviving
World War II and lahar, has legitimized it as a genuine cultural heritage.
It is truly unique and original Kapampangan festival that deserves to be
popularized and duplicated on a grander scale, since it resonates
culturally among Kapampangans: it makes fun of Kapampangan machismo and
Kapampangan pulchritude, two biases enshrined on the altar of Kapampangan
values. But Aguman Sanduk is also a protest against, and liberation
from, gender discrimination and repression, which is why it's a lot of
fun.
Singsing
Vol. 1 No. 2
February 2002
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