Living by Tradition

There’s one thing I learned from Imam Bedejim Abdullah.

“Why do I grow my beard and mustache? I do so because it’s not a fad or fashion, but growing my beard and mustache is part of our tradition as Muslims,” he said, explaining that God’s servants and messengers, from Abraham to Mohammad, had grown their beard and mustache. “And why do we not eat pork? This is also part of our Muslim tradition because our religion extends into our kitchen.”

I interviewed the Muslim chaplain of the Philippine Military Academy during the World Religion Week celebration hosted by the Saint Louis University last month. While I was interviewing him, many students came over and the Imam invited them to join us at his prayer carpet, which he spread at a lobby of one of SLU’s buildings where various religions also displayed photos and posters describing their basic tenets and doctrines.

The Imam encouraged the students to ask any questions under the sun about Islam. As expected, the students’ questions included why Muslims don’t eat pork, whether or not Islam is also a path to salvation, etc.

On pork, he said the Koran considers pigs as filthy and therefore unclean for human consumption. And so avoiding pork in their diet has become a tradition Muslims live and practice each day of their lives. According to Abdullah, the kitchen is also a sacred place and must not be defiled by something unclean.

Except for Seventh-Day Adventists, I don’t know of any Christian groups, which incorporate their Christian tradition with their culinary arts.

Even for practical reasons, there must be some wisdom in the prohibition by some religions on certain foods. And it’s not just because one person’s food is another person’s poison. Many of us belittle those who abstain from pork until we get arthritis and high blood pressure and our doctors advise us to avoid pork and other meat altogether.

On tradition versus fashion, there’s also wisdom in not being easily swayed by fashion trendsetters in Paris and New York, who decide on how our hair and faces should look and how we should dress up. Of course, new fashion means new product line, and the more people crazy about a new product, the more money for those behind this fashion business.

So there’s something to appreciate about the likes of Abdullah, who simply look and dress up as their Muslim forebears did ages ago because this is part of their tradition. In so doing, they are freed from the craze, if not trap, of having to keep up with the latest fad in fashion.

I met a Malaysian Muslim leader a few years ago and he said he stopped wearing Western suits and had since worn loose Muslim attire made of batik. He said patronizing his own traditional attire would be good for his country’s economy. Batik is Malaysia’s top clothing product and patronizing it would indeed be favorable to local batik manufacturers. Such attitude must be one of the moving forces behind Malaysia’s transformation as an economic tiger.

Even just from their views about their cuisine and about why they grow their beard and mustache, our Muslim brothers can teach us a vital lesson or two. They have much to teach to their Christian brothers and sisters, many of whom generally profess and say one thing and practice another thing.

Face of Death Changes in Benguet Upland Town

KIBUNGAN, Benguet – His village mates expected him to be given his last respects and buried the traditional way. That meant his corpse, donning only a red turban and a g-string, would be fastened into a makeshift chair surrounded by bonfires within a seven or nine-day wake. And his corpse would be entombed beside a boulder or at the mouth of a cave.

Such practice was specially accorded to someone who, during his lifetime, had hosted a series of pedit or traditional feasts during which several pigs besides cattle were offered to the gods and spirits. Under the old tradition of this Kankanaey upland town, the more pedit a person hosted, the higher status he attains in the community.

But many town mates were surprised when Teodoro Bolislis Sr., more known as Lakay (elder) Paguli, died in 2001 at age 91. Instead of a red turban and a brightly-colored dominantly red g-string, the elder’s corpse was made to wear a coat and tie. And he was not made to sit on a chair surrounded by bonfires.

Shortly after the elder died, the son drove to Baguio City to get the services of an embalmer. And the corpse was laid in state inside a pine wood coffin, which was fastened not with nails but with bamboo sticks drilled into the pine lumber. (It is taboo to use metal in a coffin as the corpse is not also allowed to wear any metallic object such as jewelries.)

Embalming was first introduced in this town of 16,000 when Atayoc Bay-an, another elder and Bolislis’ brother-in-law, died in 2000.

“Mayat kayman met baw ay doy guwapo yan doy kaman wat nanaek (Oh, he looks handsome and looks he’s just sleeping),” somebody commented then during the wake of Bolislis.

Bolislis’ three children decided on embalming and on letting their father wear coat and tie because, they said, he was a former municipal mayor.

Religion was another factor. A few years before the elder died, two of his children had just converted to “born-again” Christianity, which seeks to do away with various facets of tradition such as customary burial rites.

But even fundamentalist Christianity cannot totally wipe out old tradition. During Bolislis’ wake, the bereaved family still had to slaughter pigs whose bile and livers some elders “read” for any sign of good or bad omen. After the meat was cooked, somebody prayed the Christian way, but an elder also prayed the traditional way, offering the meat to the gods and ancestral spirits.

Also during the wake, “Amazing Grace” and other church hymns were interspersed with traditional eya-ey chants.

At early dawn during the day of the entombment of Bolislis, elders performed the traditional pabaon during which some rice and meat plus a glass of wine were offered to the spirit of the dead. The food and wine were believed to be the dead person’s packed food as he travels into the spirit world.

But at 8 a.m. a woman pastor led a necrological service for Bolislis before his remains were finally kept in a concrete tomb not far from the backyard of the family’s home.

The next day, the Bolislis family performed the traditional lawit, the last rite during which the family had to procure another pig. Through a traditional priest, the family thanked the gods and spirits and invoked them to help sustain and keep watch over the surviving family members so they could also live long, stay healthy, prosper and be at peace.

When Bolislis’ wife, Ganaya, died in 2005 she was accorded a similar mix of traditional and some Christianity-influenced burial rites. Ganaya’s remains were also kept in a concrete tomb just beside that of her husband’s tomb.

Despite the inroads of Christianity, first by the Roman Catholic Church and some Protestant churches and lately by fundamentalist charismatic and evangelical groups, traditional burial rites and age-old spiritual worldviews remain strong in this alpine town 67 kms. north of Baguio City.

One is the belief that the condition of the dead at his tomb or gravesite has something to do with the health condition of the living.

Recently, for example, the coffin of the late Juanito Mayamay, who died a few years ago, had to be repaired after his surviving wife, Payag, got ill. This was the advice of a traditional seer whom the children of Payag consulted.

The coffin of Mayamay, it turned out, was being eaten by termites so his children and relatives had to build a new one. This entailed another ritual during which the family had to procure some pigs to appease not only Mayamay’s spirit but also the gods and other spirits.

As elsewhere in the Cordilleras and other indigenous communities, Kibungan is one community where people still believe that the dead commune and communicate with the living and that life after death is very much part of the life here and now, and not separate.

Tsao-ang's Heart

Maria Elina Salvacion Kristina V. Ramo has a problem with her heart and she needs help. She is turning 19 on December 25 and the best Christmas gift for her from any Good Samaritans can be any form of support to remedy her heart problem.

Tsao-ang, as she is fondly called, was born with a hole between her left and right atria or the wall dividing her upper heart chambers. In short, she has a hole in her heart. Doctors call it Atrial Septal Disease, an abnormal condition that makes the blood flow back into the right atrium instead of going back into the other chambers. The condition, according to cardiologists, has to be corrected through an open heart surgery to close the hole.

When Tsao-ang was two years old, her parents had hoped and were made to believe that she could outgrow the condition. But she is now in college and the hole in her heart is still there. In 2004 a cardiologist in Baguio City checked Tsao-ang’s condition with a modern gadget called 2D-echo machine and recommended that she should be operated on immediately.

In May this year, yet another cardiologist at the Philippine Children’s Hospital in Quezon City confirmed the previous findings and advised Tsao-ang’s parents to move fast before anything tragic happens to their eldest child. Despite her condition, Tsao-ang has been making good in her Physics course at the University of the Philippines-College of Baguio. Tsao-ang’s teachers since pre-school say she is a specially gifted child, who excels in all her subjects, particularly math and the sciences.

Tsao-ang’s parents, Ador and Lyn, are doing all they can to save their child. But the cost of the operation is no joke, especially for both parents who simply cannot afford the more or less half-million-peso cost of operation and medicines. Ador works as a researcher in a non-government organization while Lyn writes for a local weekly newspaper in Baguio City. “Although we have only two children, our meager income barely allows for savings,” the couple said in a letter of appeal to would-be Good Samaritans who can offer any form of support to them.

Finally last October 17, Ador and Lyn finally had Tsao-ang checked up at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City after queuing for almost 10 hours. Although the new check-up reveals that she is doing well despite the hole in her heart, Tsao-ang, cardiologists at the heart center recommend, still needs surgical operation to finally close the hole.

Tsao-ang is scheduled for another final check-up through the 2D-Echo gadget on November 20 and by then the Ramo’s would know when Tsao-ang finally will be under the knife. While waiting for the schedule of operation, Ador, Lyn and their daughter are taking the opportunity for the time left to pool resources and support from relatives, friends and from any one with a big heart for Tsao-ang. And they have to prepare themselves psychologically and spiritually for the operation.

Despite her condition, Tsao-ang, as advised by her parents, could enroll during the coming semester while waiting and preparing for the operation, which, the Ramo’s are forewarned, may take a longer wait.

Tsao-ang has dreams. She hopes to finish her Physics course next year and seeks to pursue a career in architecture later. Any form of help from you can help make Tsao-ang’s dream come true. And that dream may yet help build this nation. We need all the talents and God-given gifts of every Filipino harnessed for this country of our hopes and aspirations.

Real Food

Have you ever wondered why cities are called concrete jungles? The reason is not just the skyscrapers, which replaced once lush forests. The reason may have something to do with food.

During their hunting-gathering days, our ancestors would scour the jungles to search for food. Wild animals that they hunted provided their proteins. Before discovering other edibles such as wild fruits, herbs, shrubs and other plants, our ancestors may have experimented a lot. Our ancestors had to learn which plant or fruit was edible or poisonous. They also discovered later on which plant or fruit or bark of tree or root of a shrub was medicinal.

We may be in the 21^st century, but we are on the same boat as our hunting-gathering ancestors. Like our ancestors, we have to hunt for real food that can nourish our bodies while we are in any concrete jungle in the world. If we want real food, we won’t just settle for a burger or a pizza. Real food that can give us vitamins and minerals is found elsewhere. So we have to search or hunt as our ancestors did.

For us Asians and even for Africans, there’s no food as real as a simple broth with a variety of vegetables plus steamed rice. Sabah’s state capital of Kota Kinabalu, for example, has cafes and restaurants that serve indigenous Kadazan village food. These include steamed fish, clams, lobsters and a variety of tops and shoots and three kinds of ferns. For pure vegetarians, they can go for tofu plus various kinds of beans, legumes and grains for their protein. And these are also available in street food stalls, where one can get a good breakfast for three ringgits.

We share almost the same traditional cuisine culture with the Kadazan who simply steam, blanch, boil or simmer many of their food. They use less oil and no MSG (monosodium glutamate). They simply use salt and a little sugar plus locally available spices such as ginger, garlic, onions, lemongrass, and other herbs from their mountains, forests and paddy fields.

In the Philippines, healthy cooking includes the dinengdeng or inabraw of the Ilocanos, the nilambong of the Igorots, the tinola of the Tagalogs and Visayans, and many other traditional ways such as pangat, paksiw, ginataan, and tamarind-flavored broths.

The key to healthy eating, say health food experts, is being able to get a variety of vitamins and minerals besides protein and energy. The simple malunggay, for example, is one of Manny Pacquiao’s hidden secrets behind those punches that made him a boxing champ. Former Secretary Juan Flavier himself has promoted malunggay because of its multi-vitamins and minerals from A to Z.

In a globalizing world where global food chains are homogenizing our palates, we have to hunt for the real food, which carries with them age-old traditions handed down from our ancestors. No burger please, which is as predictable as a Hollywood movie or its Pinoy clone.