The River and St. Peter

TONETTE Orejas is not known to be excitable, so that when she emailed me a letter narrating what she saw at the Apu Iru (St. Peter) fluvial procession in Apalit on June 28, and she used the word "astounded," well, I didn't even think twice.  I was in Apalit June 30, the day the image of Apu Iru was to be carried back to Capalangan (its permanent shrine) after staying in Sulipan for three days.

The Apalit fluvial procession would be the river counterpart of the Quiapo nazareno procession; instead of a cross-bearing darkened Christ they pulled an ivory-faced St. Peter, seated on a papal throne.  The really--well, to borrow Tonette's description--astounding part of it was, instead of a carroza the men pulled a barge containing the image, and instead of walking they swam in the river as they pulled it!

I have seen Kapampangan men lacerate their bodies and rub their skin against dirt road and have themselves crucified all in the name of folk religiosity, but to pull a barge as you swim in a murky river for one kilometer?!   Either you are a masochist or your faith can move barges, er, mountains.

Yet there they were, wearing bright orange jersey and calling themselves Knights of St. Peter, pulling a barge that floated on drums and contained not just the image but a layered wooden pagoda and a complete brass band and at least 50 people wildly dancing the kuraldal.  I could see them huff and puff in the water, shouting as they maneuvered the ropes so that the barge stayed on course. 

I stayed on a tug boat that floated close to the barge, thanks to Lita Manalo whose husband headed the Apalit fiesta committee.  The fluvial procession began on the left banks of the Pampanga River near the viaduct.  The parish priest said Mass which nobody paid attention to--again, showing that folk religiosity has little to do with the Church.  Even before the Mass ended, people were already jumping and splashing in the water.  Boats appeared out of nowhere, hundreds of them, loaded with smiling people who kept pouring water at themselves and each other.  They were worshipping the river as much as they were worshipping the image of Apu Iru, and right there you could see how pagan elements blended with Christian faith and how the friars had failed to erase indigenous practices.

As the swimmers pulled the barge of Apu Iru close to shore, thousands of people crowding the riverbanks danced and waved leaves and followed the barge downstream.  When morning turned into afternoon, more people turned up on both sides of the river.  They began throwing things at the swimmers--they turned out to be food, all kinds of food, packed lunch, apples, santol, mangoes, boiled eggs, kropek, much of it wasted in the water or on the floor of the tugboat.  I saw old women jumping into the river as the procession approached; they clapped and wailed like banshees and were young girls again, and after Apu Iru had passed by, they went back on land and back to their dreary monotonous lives again as wives and mothers.

The procession drew to a close around a river bend, where thousands more waited.  The sight of the barge sent them into a frenzy of splashing and merrymaking, and for the swimmers pulling the barge it was not just the end of a  long difficult swim, but  a metaphor for their struggle in the river of life.  Apu Iru, who used to be a fisherman himself before he became an apostle and later the first pope, is both their protector and their ward, and Pampanga River is both their source of life and harbinger of death. 

After the image of Apu Iru had been taken down from the barge and carried away on land, those on the boats began disposing their vessels of leftovers--plastics, styrofoam, beer bottles, empty sardines cans, non-biodegradables--which they dumped straight into the river.  Earlier, I saw a carcass floating in the same water the revelers poured on to their bodies, but no one seemed to be revolted by it, just as no one seemed to realize that by dumping their garbage they are killing the very river they profess to love and worship.  They probably know that the river renews itself by the minute.

I went back to Angeles City wondering why the northern towns of Pampanga don't have folk festivals with such raw power and vitality.  All we have are artificially induced street parties, bereft of the pure, unadulterated Kapampangan soul.   Maybe it's the American influence, or the presence of so many migrants, or the absence of big rivers.  Yes, that's probably it.  Rivers gave us our name and our spirit.   It is our brothers in the river communities that have retained their Kapampangan identity, and we who have strayed away from the Rio Grande, whose ancient name is Indung Kapampangan, have deprived ourselves too long of our mother's nourishment.   Maybe we should make a pilgrimage to the river of our origins once a year, like what the Hindus do at the Ganges. 
 
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