My hometown of Santa Barbara celebrates Semana Santa just like other towns do - spiritual, cultural, and gastronomical. It's the last one that often makes blogging a lot more fun in as the town plaza is transformed into one big bingkahan as almost 10 stalls offer these rice cakes to the devotees. Bingka is made from a rice flour, coconut, milk, eggs and sugar among others and are cookedi n makeshift ovens. Bingka made in Sta. Barbara are different from those made in other parts of the province of Iloilo as these are almost puto-like.
And on Tuesday, there will be a competition among these bingka stalls in the Tastiest Bingka Contest. It was a few Holy Weeks ago that I made my own bingka "contest" by trying all the bingkas from various stalls, that I almost ate nothing during the Lenten Season but bingka. But this year, it will be more official ...
In the meantime here are some of the Lenten Season activties in Santa Barbara ...
With Santa Barbaranhons predominantly Roman Catholics, the Municipal Tourism Office spearheads three activities in respect with the celebration of Holy Week. These are the Kapiya Contest, Pasyon Singing Contest and Palm-Leaf Creation.
Kapiya and Pasyon-singing contest are century-old traditions observed by Santa Barbaranhons every Holy Week, wherein, the life story of Jesus Christ is foretold through singing with strings as accompaniment. This activity is participated by the different barangays in the town.
Palm leaf Creation is another activity wherein old folks compete for the most intricately-designed palm-leaf. This is staged every Palm Sunday to celebrate Christ’s triumphal entry intro Jerusalem. He was welcomed with a crowd waving palm branches. All these activities are celebrated annually.
PASYON
The Pasyón is normally heard during Holy Week in the Philippines, where its recitation is known as the Pabása ("Reading"). The rite can span several days, extending no later than Black Saturday, but is usually ended before 3 pm of Good Friday (the time when Jesus died on the cross).
Readers chant the Pasyón from beginning to end without pause; this non-stop recitation is facilitated by the chanters working in shifts. The chanters usually perform the rite as a panatâ ("vow"), or votive offering in request or thanksgiving. They are frequently aged women, but in recent years some of the younger generation have shown increased interest in it.
The rite usually takes place in front of a specially constructed shrine or altar within the home or a temporary outdoor booth, covered on the sides by palm leaves. This may also be done in the visita/kapilya (chapel) or some communal area.
PALM-LEAF MAKING/PALASPAS
The origins of the Palm Sunday palaspas can be traced as far back as the pre-Hispanic Philippines. In his 1589 account, Fray Juan de Plasencia describes how early Filipinos would use “leaves of the white palm, wrought into many designs” to decorate lamps during festivities. Similar uses of thepalaspas have also been noted in different non-Catholic ethnic groups across the country, such as the Tausug who use kidlat-shaped leaves as wedding decorations.
The palaspas is made from young coconut palm leaves, locally called ibus, which have not opened. The first step in making the palaspas is to cut open the sprout, divide the unopened fronds, and break off the hard midrib in the middle of the leaf using a sharp knife; leaving enough stem to act as a handle. As this is done, some of the other leaves set to be woven into the palaspas are temporarily placed in a bucket of water to prevent wilting.
PRUSISYON
The Good Friday procession happens after three o'clock in the afternoon (the time at which Jesus is traditionally believed to have died). Santa Barbaranhons venerate the cross in the local church and follow the procession of the Burial of Jesus. The image of the dead Christ is then laid in state to be venerated, and sometimes treated in accordance with local burial customs.
