Sagada’s ‘Panag-aapoy’ lights up a hill to honor the dead

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — I was at the early stages of graduate school thesis work at the University of the Philippines Baguio in 2007 when I was told by photographer Tommy Hafalla that the ritual “Begnas” of Sagada town in Mountain Province was to be held in the days leading up to All Saints’ Day.

Begnas is a ritual that invokes the intercession of ancestral spirits to keep the community in a constant state of well-being. It is held six times a year following the agricultural calendar. I had waited for the right opportunity to observe the Begnas for the first time, important as this was for my research. Thus, Hafalla’s invitation could not have come at a better time.

This particular cycle of the ritual coincides with All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1).

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An occasional drizzle added to the gloom of that overcast day. Not good for photography. There was also a slight chill in the air. I observed, over the years, that this was typical All Saints’ Day weather in Sagada. In the cemetery called Calvary on the hill above the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin, nothing was happening unlike in Baguio for instance, where at daybreak, the public cemetery is already at full capacity.

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READ: Respect Sagada’s tradition for the dead, tourists told

“It usually takes place after sunset,” Hafalla says. We were there at 5:30 in the afternoon. The fog was rolling in, and the air was still woefully damp. The first thing I noticed were the bundles of fatwood—that resin rich part of pinewood called “saleng”—placed at the head stone of each grave.

By 6 p.m., an Episcopal priest starts going around the cemetery, blessing each grave with holy water. Presently, relatives of the deceased start lighting up their saleng bundles until the entire side of the hill was ablaze with one bonfire lit for each grave.

Saleng is usually used only as kindling or fire starter. But because each year is always anticipated to be drizzling, the surroundings were damp, so the people needed material that burns easily and fast. The drawback, however, is that saleng emits dark smoke. As the night wore on, we could no longer distinguish between smoke and fog.

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But why firewood, instead of the traditional candles, when performing what the community have since called “Panag-aapoy” (also referred to as panag-apoy, which means to light a fire)? Hafalla’s response was more casual rather than grounded in some complex indigenous ritual system: “The spirits of the ancestors can see better if their way is brightly lit.”

Vigil

On the other hand, the community’s commonsense manner of relating to the spirit world might be traceable to a nexus of Christianity and indigeneity. Begnas begins with an overnight vigil in sacred place they call “babawian” somewhere in the forest. During the vigil, the participants light a huge bonfire—a beacon for the spirits that a ritual is about to take place.

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By analogy, the cemetery is a sacred place, and All Saints’ Day is a ritual. But the people’s unmistakable indigeneity avoids the candle because of its weak luminance, and is therefore insufficient to summon the spirits. Local custom also does not embrace All Saints’ Day as a festive occasion unlike the Tagalogs’ “Pista ng Patay.” In Sagada, Panag-aapoy is not a festival.

Social media caught on through the years, and tour organizers and operators saw an opportunity to bundle this practice in a tourism package. The made-up pretext is that it is a “festival,” and therefore the event is open to the public.

Intimate affair

The reality, however, is that it is a day for families to remember their departed loved ones and has always been a private and intimate affair more than a public spectacle.

This is why touting it as a “festival” is met with staunch pushback by some quarters in Sagada, some of them owners of homestays. This is also the reason why I kept these images and this story out of the public eye for almost two decades. Although the imagery is truly spectacular, recasting this as a tourist event encroaches upon the spirit for which it is held. —Contributed

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(Roland Rabang, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Department of Language, Literature and the Arts, College of Arts and Communication of the University of the Philippines Baguio.)