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[av_heading heading=’A farcical exploitation of the Ati culture’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, January 19, 2017
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MAY I begin by denying any ill motive against any religious organization? I simply find it ridiculous that we knowingly celebrate the mythic integration of our ancestors – the black, kinky-haired Negritos into the Roman Catholic mainstream.
On second thought, the farcical celebrations of the annual Ati-Atihan and Dinagyang festivals in Kalibo, Aklan and Iloilo City, respectively, authenticate what Adolf Hitler’s propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote in 1939: “A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.” The lie in focus this week is the re-enactment of the alleged conversion of the Aetas or Atis into Christianity.
The Ati-Atihan and Dinagyang festivals perpetuate the belief that there had been tribal wars among the Aetas with a happy ending – what with the warriors throwing their spears and raising the Santo Niño while chanting, “Viva Señor Santo Niño!”
So why don’t we just shed it of religious pretension and focus instead on its tourism value? If truth be told, foreign and local tourists – whether Christians, Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus – come not to worship the image but to be entertained.
There is historical error inherent in the depiction of the Atis as war freaks. Nothing in history confirms the notion that they fought wars in the name of the Santo Niño. On the contrary, instead of making war, they made peace with the anchoring 10 Bornean datus – Puti, Sumakwel, Paiburong, Bangkaya, Parohinog, Lubay, Dumangsil, Dumangsol, Dumalugdog and Balensuela – who had sailed on boats all the way from Borneo to Iloilo to escape the tyranny of Sultan Makatunaw.
The natives of that period (which the late Ilonggo historian Pedro Monteclaro estimated to be in the year 1212) could not have embraced Christianity; could not have chanted “Viva Señor Santo Nino!” It was only in 1521 or 309 years later that Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu with an image of the Santo Niño, to which the inhabitants were hostile.
To this day, we rarely see an Ati going to church. If there’s one or two of them standing by the church door, it’s to beg meekly.
Worse, they are not beneficiaries of the money-making festivals that exploit their culture.
From a different historical angle, the late Aklanon historian Roman dela Cruz seemed to have stumbled upon the reason why Kalibo’s Ati-Atihan is linked to the worship of the image of the child Jesus. In his book Town of a Thousand, he wrote that the name of the town of Kalibo had descended from the phrase “isa ka libo” – meaning one thousand – in honor of 1,000 “Indios” who were herded by the Spanish friars and forced to undergo mass baptism on the third Sunday of January 1569. Therefore, the compelled converts were not Ati warriors.
Dinagyang was originally known as Ati-Atihan, too, which began in November 1967 at the San Jose Parish Church at Plaza Libertad, Iloilo City, through the initiative of Fr. Ambrosio Galindez. His faithful parishioners organized that first Iloilo Ati-Atihan patterned after Aklan’s Ati-Atihan, where natives dance in the streets, their bodies covered with soot and ashes, to simulate the Atis dancing while carrying images of the Santo Niño.
In 1977 when the country was still under martial law, President Ferdinand Marcos ordered the various regions of the Philippines to come up with festivals or celebrations that could boost tourism. The Church then willingly handed over to the Iloilo City local government the responsibility of organizing the annual Iloilo Ati-Atihan.
Hence, the city launched a search for a new name. The entry submitted by the late Ilonggo writer/broadcaster Pacifico Sudario, “Dinagyang” – which means “merry-making” in English – won the search.
Having known Sudario personally many years before his death, I am certain it was not his motive to paint sectarian color to Dinagyang; he was not a Santo Niño devotee but a Jehovah’s Witness./PN
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