IT’S TWO DAYS after the longest running and most popular fiesta in Iloilo City and perhaps in the country, the Jaro Fiesta or the Feast of our Lady of Candles.
It is traditionally known as the Fiesta de la Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria held in honor of the patron saint of the District of Jaro, Our Lady of Candles.
So how was your Candelaria? Did you enjoy watching chickens hack themselves to death? Perhaps you even placed a few thousand pesos bet on your favorite fighting cock. Or maybe you just enjoyed the usual lechon pig, cow or chicken caldereta and other carnivorous fiesta fare.
Are you even aware that these animals are sentient beings like you with the ability to feel pleasure, pain and fear from being slaughtered and eaten? I don’t think so.
But what is the Candelaria? From that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
Our Lady of the Candles (Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria; formally: Nuestra Señora de la Purificación y Candelaria) is a Marian title and image venerated by Filipino Catholics in Western Visayas. The image, which is enshrined at the balcony of the Jaro Cathedral, is locally known as the patroness of Jaro District of Iloilo City and the whole of Western Visayas.
The feast day of Our Lady of Candles is on Candlemas (Feb. 2), and is celebrated in Iloilo City with Tridentine Masses, a grand procession, and numerous other parades.
Tradition recounts the statue’s first appearance in 1587, where a group of fishermen found it floating in the Iloilo River yet could not lift it due to its heavy weight. When the fishermen decided to bring it to Jaro, the image became easier to carry. The statue was initially placed in a small niche near the apex of the local church’s central spire. Folklore speaks of the statue’s recorded growth in size over the centuries, to the point that it was transferred to the balcony. The image’s shrine is accessible today by a flight of steps attached to the cathedral’s north-eastern façade.
The statue received Papal sanction from Pope John Paul II, who personally canonically crowned the statue on Feb. 21, 1981 during his first Apostolic Visit to the Philippines, declaring it the patroness of Western Visayas. It is thus the only Marian statue in the Philippines personally crowned by a Pope and saint.
Okay, so it is a genuine dyed in the wool religious fiesta dating back from the Spanish Colonial Era and with blessing and endorsement from no less than the Pope. I don’t think you can get any more religious than that.
As with any fiesta in the Philippines, the day is characterize with revelry, the usual eating and drinking, fireworks and to cap the day, the coronation of the fiesta queen.
The Jaro Fiesta has become one of the major tourist attractions of Iloilo City, perhaps second only to the Dinagyang Festival which happens a week before the Candelaria. Usually visitors and tourist coming for the Dinagyang Festival would stay and wait for the Candelaria.
Tourist and visitors are attracted to the spectacle of the grand procession featuring magnificent floats of saints and icons of the Catholic Church. It has also been the tradition in Jaro Fiesta wherein the loveliest ladies from the prominent families, usually students of exclusive girls schools in Jaro, join the grand procession as sagalas. Of course, the Fiesta Queen and Princesses as a tradition should always come from a prominent family in Jaro.
Not usually known by the regular tourist but is part and parcel of Jaro Fiesta or Candelaria, another parallel fiesta of sorts is also happening in Jaro.
The Candelaria International Cock Derby, this is the World Cup, the NBA Finals of all cockfighting devotees and aficionados. The Candelaria Derby has been attracting cockfighting aficionados from all over the country and the rest of the world.
It is the time of the year when helpless sentient beings or non-human animals are being slaughtered in the name of Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria.
And I am not just talking here about the pigs killed to be made into lechon, cows into lechon baka, fried chickens, and goats into caldereta.
I specifically mean the cocks or chickens killed in that cruel blood sport commonly known as sabong or bulang. The cocks or male chickens are fitted with razor-sharp knives in their legs and let loose to fight each other to the death. There is nothing crueler than to see cocks hack each other to death while the predominantly middle-aged male audience bet thousands up to millions of pesos cheering their cocks (pun intended) to win.
The whole cockfighting spectacle is so Freudian.
It is so ironic and perhaps hypocritical where you have a festival of a religion founded on compassion yet condone a cruel blood sport in the name of Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria.
At the end of the day, “Culture is not an excuse for cruelty.”/PN
