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The Bocaue river tragedy is now a movie. It happened last July 2, 1993 and claimed the lives of over 250 people, mainly women and children. It reminded us of the potential disasters from pre-Spanish war-games that were appropriated as Catholic religious rituals. An example is the fluvial war-game, which was essential to the survival of the tribal barangay. This war-game enabled the village men to rehearse their naval battle plans and fighting skills in combat against their enemies, and to test the swiftness and maneuverability of their boats. When this war-game was adapted as a religious ritual in the fluvial procession, and its practical value (i.e., defense and attack) replaced with a spiritual one (i.e., religious worship), it did not lose its harm-inflicting nature. Indeed, the replacement of the men by women and children riding in clumsily structured boats even enhanced the former war-game’s harmful possibilities. In Tacloban, a fluvial procession is a component of the fiesta celebration. However, we would like to think that, apart from its invoked religious value, the fluvial display seemed to commemorate how the Kanhuraw area was captured in a naval attack, and kept through regular show of naval might, by the Basey-based Kandaya "kingdom." Another war-game that evolved into a religious ritual is the Sinulog war-dance performed during fiesta parades in Kalibo, Cebu, and Tacloban. The Jesuit priest-chronicler, Francisco Alcina, commented on this dance in 1668 as follows: "In one of their war-dances the men dance alone among themselves with their shields, their daggers and lances imitating their attacks and retreats as if they were in battle ... This dance is a kind of a school for learning to fight in their fashion ... It is a real pleasure to see what agility they demonstrate in their attacks and retreats; how they guard and protect themselves lest a blow might strike them. At times, if one of them is careless and strikes an opponent a little too hard without necessarily wounding him, the mock battle turns quickly into a real thing. Then it is necessary to separate them and make peace between them and thus restore friendship ... This dance is more an imitation of war than a dance, although they weave in dancing among these assaults." In Tacloban, fiesta religious rituals now include the Sinulog dance performed mainly by children and teenagers. Unfortunately, some of the dancers, who also aped their ancestors’ tattoos by painting their bodies with kalburo, paint, or soot from kitchen pots and pans, would dip their hands in enamel paint and mischievously pressed them on parade-watchers’ clothing, on cars and jeepneys, and on other objects of fancy along the parade route. The results over the past few years have so far included frayed nerves, a stabbing case, widespread anarchy, and organized mischief courtesy of the paint dealers and manufacturers. So far, only the fluvial procession of Tacloban has hewed close to the solemnity of its war-game origins. Perhaps this is because adult men are principal participants in the ritual. In contrast, the local version of Sinulog has deteriorated into an annual exercise in frivolity, mischief, and anarchy, crowded by rowdy adolescents and teenagers. It is no longer the solemn Sinulog of our ancestors described earlier. Instead, it has become an invitation to bad-blood and ill-will. We learn from the Bocaue tragedy that war-games, even if disguised as colorful religious rituals, are not for women and children. War-games require and reinforce skill, agility and alertness -- characteristics that cannot be substituted with passive piety, the prayerful murmuring of women, and the wide-eyed innocence and naivete of children. | . |