Sunday, July 31, 2016

No Other Way but One Way


Where Salcedo Street ends in Legazpi Village of Makati City, the country’s financial hub, it can get a tad quiet. Though still part of the business center, the area is off the shopping and dining hubs and is characterized by the back view of imposing buildings. There is a couple of residential condominiums and a few stores. A small art gallery just opened. And at the corner of Salcedo and Benavidez Street, behind the one-way sign, perhaps the most noticeable thing on the street is a restaurant named One Way.
The area is not known as a dining hub, but “we hope to pioneer a dining scene here,” said wine connoisseur and distributor Ronald Lim Joseph.
The director of the Philippine Wine Merchants co-owns the restaurant at the ground floor of the Concorde Building, which was first a wine bar called Nectar with a predominantly Greek menu, with his brother Ralph.
“Then a bunch of friends came in. We changed the concept and the whole menu,” Joseph related.
Seminal to that change is consul of Lebanon Joseph Assad, who tasted pizza with crust made from sourdough for the first time in 2012 at a restaurant called The Luggage Room in Pasadena, California. He recounted the experience in One Way’s Web site: “I was flabbergasted! It was the best pizza I ever had in my 60 years of pizzastromy! I was in Pizza Heaven! I was in love! It was a major revelation! It’s the toppings that normally make a great pizza but in this case it was not just the toppings it was the crust. The sourdough had that extra tangy bite to it that the normal plain white dough pizzas do not have. I truly fell in love with this sourdough pizza.”
When he got back to Manila, he told of his discovery to the Joseph brothers and began his search for sourdough bread and pizza, which led him to chef Harold Nilooban. A family lunch with Nilooban cooking made him decide to open a restaurant pulling in the Josephs, executive Nando Ortigas and “nightlife legend” Louie Ysmael. They transformed the Josephs’ wine bar into One Way Restaurant, which formally opened in March 2014.
One immediately notices, upon entering One Way, that the design motif is inspired by the iconic street sign—predominantly striped with black and white. Diners who come in in outfits that match the interiors need not fret; they get a surprise prize. Breaking the preponderance of black-and-white stripes are framed photographs riddled the walls, mostly of people, friends and visitors of the owners, enjoying the food and company.
The main dining area can accommodate about 120 persons, and there is a small deli and bakery for breakfast and sandwiches. Equipped with its own entrance is the Tasting Room, which can accommodate up to 18 persons and can be used for small conferences, meetings, get-togethers, etc.
Here, we sampled some of One Way’s bestsellers, prepared by its new Ukrainian chef Vitaliy Lavrenchuk, with wines (and wine education) courtesy of Ronald Joseph. 
“We don’t push it to be a fine-dining restaurant,” Joseph said of the restaurant. “It’s not fine dining, but you get fine dining food and experience without the fine dining prices.”
The menu is predominantly European with smattering of American. Most of the dishes are all-time favorites ? “comfort food,” they like to say currently.     
While lunch was being prepared, canapés of shrimp cocktail on multigrain bread with balsamic and garlic butter allayed our hunger. A welcome drink of a slushie of lemon and generous helpings of basil and mint was a goblet of sunshine, perking one up.
Lunch started off with cream of wild mushroom soup (P290), served in a bowl of hallowed out bread, freshly baked and made from sourdough. Not cloyingly rich but hefty with ample pieces of mushrooms, the soup was thoroughly enjoyable, which made me scrape out the bottom and sides of the bread bowl, bread pieces dissolving into the soup that got thicker.
Lavrenchuk immediately rolled out their pizzas, the two bestselling kinds with thin sourdough crust. The Mediterranean pizza (P590) has toppings of goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, fresh basil, capers and salami, while the Pamplona pizza (P580) has jamon Serrano, Spanish spicy chorizo, cherry tomato, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese and lemon dressing.
Bright red and festive-looking, Pamplona was unanimously the favorite, with the salty and smoky flavors of the meats perfect for the light sourness of the dressing. Toppings complemented also the sourdough crust, which is chewy and more flavorful than the ordinary crust.
“We’re pushing for the sourdough,” Joseph said. Indeed, the pizza has become one of the popular items in One Way, which offers five kinds. You can even create your own pizza (for P680) with about 15 toppings to choose from.
Sourdough is used for their breads, which can be savored as Danish-style open-faced sandwiches and burgers (from P360 to 480).
Their pastas are also noteworthy. We tried the cream of aligue (crab fat) spaghetti (P370) which had baby prawns, crab paste, cognac and cream, and the red pesto (P360) linguine with Spanish-style sardines and sundried tomato. The sauces were blended well, with interesting flavors harmonizing like symphony.
The entrees employed much effort to prepare. The classic French dish coq au vin (chicken braised in white wine) with rice pilaf and green pea puree (P490) was tastier than I previously had, but the three-hour melot-braised lamb shank with pimiento risotto (P990 for single and P1,350 for size meant for sharing) was a delight, with the meat sliding off the bones, drenched in rich tangy sauce.
Capping the meal was one of their crepe flavors-the Mango Jubilee-prepared in a flamb‚ by the table.
As much as the dishes, the wines were also stars.
“Our wine selection is probably the most extensive in the whole country because we’re wine importers,” boasted Joseph.
He picked the wines that best go with the dish, not minding anymore the red wine-for-meat rule. He said that it is best to gauge body when pairing-light wine for light dishes. For the mushroom soup, he recommended Angas Brut, dry chardonnay from Australia, while the pizzas were accompanied by Valpolicella from Verona, Italy. It was Pirramimma from McLaren Vale, South Australia, for the pastas. The crepe was paired with the sweet Gancia Asti sparkling wine from Italy.
While they can whimsical with the design of the restaurant, One Way takes their foods and wines seriously, taking much effort to prepare them. And that’s the way dining should be-earnest in cooking, light-hearted in eating.

One Way Restaurant is at 206 Salcedo Street corner Benavidez Street, Legazpi Village, Makati City, Metro Manila, with telephone number 869-8958 and mobile number 0906-5572588.

Black-and-white stripes is the dominant design  of the restaurant's interiors



Canapes
Three-hour merlot lamb shank
Cream of aligue pasta
Cream of wild mushroom soup

Mango Jubilee
Mediterranean pizza

Pamplona Pizza
Red pesto pasta with sardines
Three-hour merlot lamb shank
Preparing the Mango Jubilee
The chef

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Wonder World of Weaves: The Textile Galleries of the National Museum


Inside the glass encasement, with its micro-weather of controlled temperature and humidity to halt further damage, the object appears to be a map of ancient lands, very different from what we know of present geography, its crannies remaining uncharted. At one point, it looks like an old puzzle, with pieces forever missing and patterns, obscured by age, at once familiar and inscrutable.
This is actually the oldest piece of textile in existence in the Philippines. Called the Banton cloth, it is estimated to be from the thirteenth to the early fourteenth century. Considered to be the earliest specimen of wrap tie-dyed textile in Southeast Asia, the Banton cloth was discovered in April 22, 1966 by a team from National Museum, after being informed by a local of cave complex, an ancient burial site, in Banton Island of the province of Rombon in Central Philippines. Inside the already disturbed cave, the team found wooden coffins, Chinese stone jars, Chinese and Siamese plates and bowls, ornaments, glass beads, turtle shell combs and the abaca cloth, which measures 74.5 centimeters in length and 75 centimeters in width. It was declared a National Cultural Treasure in 2010.
Museologist and anthropologist Ana Maria Theresa Labrador, assistant director of the National Museum of the Philippines, theorizes that the Banton cloth may be a trade object, brought to the island from other areas, even from outside of the Philippines.
On the other hand, Philippine traditional arts scholar and professor Dr. Norma Respicio, in her book Journey of a Thousand Shuttles: The Philippine Weave (2014), writes: “The interplay of plain stripes and designed bands in the Banton cloths attests to the dexterity of the textile producer in the art and technology of weaving, dyeing and ikat designing where interfaced designs are produced through the tying of certain parts of the warp yarns in a series of folds. Moreover, the designs, both the non-figurative and the figurative forms, bear social and cultural significations in traditional Philippine aesthetics.”
Which ever, the Banton cloth remains to be a mystery that tantalizes both the scholars and the layman visitors, an enigmatic gem of the National Museum (NM) for several years. Now, the precious artefact has a new home, though still within NM. The museum has unveiled a new section dedicated to Philippine textiles and the art and technology of weaving at the third floor of the Museum of the Filipino People (old Finance Building). The Queen Sofia Hall and Hall 318 were converted into the Textile Galleries, which was formally unveiled in May 18, 2012. In September 21, their permanent exhibit, “Hibla ng Lahing Filipino: The Artistry of Philippine Textiles,” began seeing visitors.
The idea for the Textile Galleries sparked when like-minded individuals met and then collaborated. NM credits Loren Legarda as a moving force behind the creation of the galleries. The senator¸ who chairs the Senate Committee on Cultural Communities, has been promoting traditional woven textiles, her passion which became part of her advocacy to preserve indigenous culture. Legarda has been known for wearing gowns fashioned from hand-woven traditional fabrics and has showcased native fabrics and Philippine attires in several exhibits in the Senate.
“But I have long dreamed of seeing a textile museum in my own country,” she revealed. “With more than a hundred indigenous cultural communities in our country, we should showcase our rich culture and the distinctiveness of our own habi.”
In 2010, Legarda met NM director Jeremy Barns and Labrador, which started the ball rolling, overcoming the hurdles that came their way.
NM sourced from its own collections to put into the Textile Galleries. Other government agencies and institutions became partners and supporters in the endeavour including the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA) of the Department of Agriculture, the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI) of the Department of Science and Technology, and the University of the Philippines’ Asian Center.
The Aklan Provincial Tourism Council and HIBLA contributed additional looms. Congressman Victor Ortega of the First District of La Union, Ilocos Sur vice governor Deogracias Victor Savellano and councilor Edmund Gavina of Bangar, La Union also contributed items to the museum.
“It’s really convergence,” Legarda said. “There is really cooperation and convergence among government agencies.”
Labrador served as chief curator of the exhibition, which aims to provide a preliminary survey and study of the similarities of the traditional textiles.
“We finally thought we should really think about nation and how textiles bind us a nation,” Labrador related. “So, we look at the common practices, common threads, common fibers, that are really kind of found all over the country.”
“The word is commonality and the ties that bind, the threads of life,” Legarda affirmed. “These are perhaps three phrases or words that formed part of the work we’ve done here, because we are an archipelago, we have many ethno-linguistic groups, we have about 80 provinces with about 41,000 barangays, we have more than a hundred of languages. We’re so diverse. But textiles, and with the various textiles, however, we try to find the commonality, the unity amidst this diversity. That is what we’re pushing for here. We do not want to further divide the nation by displaying the textiles geographically. So, what Ana did was to the find the ikat of the North and the ikat of the South, or the embroideries of the Cordilleras, which have commonality with those of the Muslim groups….”
      “Hibla ng Lahing Filipino” looks into the likenesses, exchanges and borrowing of designs and forms in local weaves, believing that they can be coaxed to reveal visions of a national identity through threads that when woven as textile, may piece together their different stories.
The exhibition tells the processes of weaving, informing visitors first of the different fibers used by the different ethnic groups with weaving traditions. Abaca and cotton are commonly used by many ethnic groups. An attractive chart, reproduced from the 2009 book Bahaghari: Colors of the Philippines, shows the natural dyes that have been used all over the Philippines, from the karimbabul to the malunggay.
The different looms used by different groups, such as the foot loom and the back-strap loom, are displayed in one area, enabling visitors to compare and contrast. Other production materials can also be seen and marveled at. The finished textiles are laid out to reveal their beauty..
The exhibit illustrates the social significance of textiles in different communities, the roles they play in rituals and in life, from birth to death. Aside from the Banton cloth, another National Cultural Treasure is on display—the kinuttiyan of the Ifugao, a ritual death blanket of the kadangyan, the high-ranking members of the Ifugao community. The one here is collected in June 13, 1968 by William Beyer in Amanagad, Banaue, Ifugao.
Additionally, large photographs of several indigenous people wearing their traditional attires, such as the Mandaya, decorate the walls, taken by prominent photographer Wyg Tysmans. At another are historic photographs of several ethnic groups in traditional garb at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition (courtesy of the American Museum of National History archives).       
Also part of the exhibit are gowns, dresses and barong Tagalog by prominent fashion designers such as Jojie Lloren, Cesar Gaupo, Barge Ramos, Frederick Peralta, Milka Quin and Roy Gonzales.
The Textile Galleries are not only repositories of precious artefacts and specimens but they also serve as venues for lectures and live weaving demonstrations by actual weavers, which are occasionally mounted during Fridays and Saturdays.
The Senator Loren Legarda Lecture Series on Philippine Traditional Textiles and Indigenous Knowledge officially started on March 13, 2012, along with the preview of the Textile Galleries.
“In this modern day and age, it is quite a difficult task to make our people embrace our culture since many may have long forgotten about it. But if they refuse to visit our history, we must let history visit them. These Textile Galleries and the lecture series we organized are some of our efforts towards that,” Legarda commented.
Tagabawa Bagobo weavers, piña weavers from Aklan, weavers from the Cordilleras as well as from the Ilocos Region have been brought in for visitors to witness and experience actual weaving. Mat and basket weavers from different cultural communities have also been invited.
 Labrador admitted that the galleries are not thoroughly comprehensive. “We chose because it can’t possibly accommodate everything, but we’re hoping someday we can have a standalone museum for textiles,” she said.
“It’s a work in progress,” Legarda added. “I’m not saying it’s perfect but we’re trying.”
Right now, ideas, plans and dreams are being woven.
Legarda mentioned plans of bringing in the textile collection of one of Philippines’ most revered heroes, Jose Rizal. It is presently at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin in Germany. Another plan is the collection of sketches of Filipino fashion designers, which are usually discarded after use.
“What we want to do is also to create an archive of Filipino fashion designs,” Labrador revealed.  “We want to be a reference later on for maybe designers or merchandisers, [a place to] look at what we have. It’s really to inspire later on to generate more innovations and designs.”
She also said that they’re starting a program on “economic botany” in collaboration with FIDA and PTRI “because we want to be more relevant to local people.”
“So, we’re experimenting now with fibers to see if we can harness them that can be turned into something else so that local people could actually have a means of livelihood,” Labrador said.
With these, the National Museum is tying together life and death, tradition and innovation, past and future, and the different cultures with imagination and the fibers of our country.



The exhibition features different kinds of looms in the Philippines as well as other implements for weaving and the finished textiles. Large-scale photographs by Wig Tysman features selected indigenous peoples in their traditional wear





Both traditional attires and gowns made by contemporary designers, using hand-woven fabrics, are on display at the Textile Galleries





The Banton cloth, estimated to be from the thirteenth to the early fourteenth century, is the oldest exsiting piece of cloth in the Philippines and is considered to be the earliest specimen of wrap tie-dyed textile in Southeast Asia. It was discovered in a disturbed burial site in Banton Island, Romblon, along with other artefacts. /Photo from the National Museum of the Philippines

 The kinuttiyan, made of cotton and dyed using the binudbudan or wrap-ikat tie-dyed resist technique,  is the ritual death blanket of the kadangyan, the high-ranking members of the Ifugao community. This specimen, declared a National Cultural Treasure, was collected in June 13, 1968 by William Beyer in Amanagad, Banaue, Ifugao. /Photo from the National Museum of the Philippines
Museum of the Filipino People, where the Textile Galleries are, is part of the National Museum complex and is located along Finance Road, Ermita, Manila. Visiting hours are from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M., Tuesdays to Sundays. For more information, visit www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph.






Sunday, July 17, 2016

Maytinis: A Christmas Eve Tradition and Spectacle in Kawit, Cavite

Mary and Joseph searching for lodging
In the early afternoon, a day before Christmas, the whirlwind of decorating, events, shopping, reunions, rituals, and whatnot, especially in urbanized areas such as Metro Manila, had relatively calmed down. The Christmas season has been a most cherished by Filipinos through the years, characterized by a flurry of activities since the start of December and culminating in a relative quiet on Christmas Eve, reserved for intimate gatherings of family and friends and time-honored traditions, but the air is still anticipatory and crisp.
About 25 kilometers south of Manila, in the town of Kawit in Cavite, the streets were almost empty and the quiet were intermittently broken by marching bands, which gathered one by one at the old Saint Mary Magdalene Parish Church and had come already performing.  
Just before dusk, a few blocks away, at the Freedom Park, the cluster of makeshift food stalls and tiangge had all opened, and people were strolling around, meeting up, chattering, eating and playing around the monument of the town’s most famous son, General Emilio Aguinaldo, the first president of the First Republic of the Philippines. The park nestles in the shadows of the Aguinaldo Shrine, the handsome ancestral mansion of Aguinaldo, first built in 1845 and reconstructed in 1849, where he declared the independence of the Philippines on June 12, 1898. Yearly, Kawit figures prominently in the celebration of the Independence Day, a most significant commemoration in the nation. But Christmas is a more festive occasion, bringing people together and lovely memories, and in Kawit the Christmas Eve celebration can be grand.
As the dark settled, the predominantly-white Aguinaldo Shrine was bathed in the brightest of colors, changing to the accompaniment of Christmas music. People gathered to watch and at the same time waited for the traditional float parade to pass by. Kawiteños celebrate Christmas Eve with the panunuluyan, and their version of the panunuluyan, called maytinis, differ from all else in the country by, for one, showiness.
The floats they were anticipating had gathered in Binakayan Kanluran. The barangay is near an area often called Junction, where traffic is usually busy being a main thoroughfare of cars going to Metro Manila and to other parts Cavite, and a makeshift amusement park, the perya, had been set up at one corner for the season.
At the Aguinaldo Shrine and on the main street, the crowds had become thicker, their eyes fixed on a bright moving spot at the end of the street. The parade had started, and the crowds became restless as it neared the shrine. Marshalls on motorcycles asked the spectators to give way, followed by men in gorilla and monster costumes, scaring and amusing the crowd, taking place of the payaso or clowns of yesteryears. 
The floats came, one after another, richly decorated and bearing persons playing Biblical characters. Pulled by small vans and jeeps and brightly lit to show the costumes and sets, they depicted select scenes and characters from the Bible—from Adam and Eve of the Old Testament to the announcement of Jesus Christ’s birth in the New Testament. Each float was followed by a band of children called pastores, literally “shepherds,” costumed accordingly. Marching bands from all over the province were placed in between, playing Christmas tunes.
The floats made a brief stopped at the shrine, where from the balcony a person read the stories and meanings of each float; and proceeded to go around parts of the town, ending at the church. Along the way, the parade got stalled and slowed down by crowds getting too near them, and by the float of Mary and Joseph, the most important, reenacting the search for lodging—stopping by three to four houses, asking for a place to stay and being turned away by the innkeepers, their exchanges all chanted with music from a marching band.
           The origin of this fusion of pageantry and religious dramatization is unknown, but locals generally believe that the maytinis has been practiced for about three centuries now, starting with the establishment of the Saint Mary Magdalene Church, promulgated by Spanish missionaries stationed there to celebrate Christmas as well as to employ an effective way of evangelization.
            Christianization of the Philippines started with the first European contact and then colonization in the sixteenth century, resulting in the predominance of Christianity, particularly Catholicism, in the country with about ninety percent of the present population professing to be Christians.
            The spread of Christianity in Cavite started in a settlement now known as Kawit, being the first anchorage of the Spaniards in the province. It was then given the name Cavite el Viejo and was changed to Kawit in 1907. Franciscan friars are said to be the first missionaries to administer Kawit, and these included Spanish friar Pedro Bautista or Peter Baptist Blasquez, who came to the Philippines in 1583 after being in Mexico. He spent nine years in the Spanish colony, where he built a hospital in 1591 in the seaport in Cavite, most likely, Kawit. He was then sent to Japan, where he was crucified with twenty-six others. They would eventually be known as the Martyrs of Japan, canonized as saints in 1862.
In 1624, Manila Archbishop Miguel Garcia Serrano commended Cavite el Viejo to the supervision of the Jesuits, who established the parish with Saint Maria Magdalena as patron saint, chosen, as anecdotes tell, because the seaport area had become known for prostitution. The Jesuits also built the first church, which was made of wood, in 1638 with the help of six Filipino families from the towns of Silang and Maragondon. The present stone church was built in 1737. They Jesuits administered the parish until 1768, after which the secular clergy took over. Then the church was place under the Recollects in 1849.
Along the way, most likely in the early years of Kawit’s Christianization, Christian celebrations, such as Christmas, were also brought in, and the celebrations were also made avenues for Christian education of the locals, employing different mediums that have become part of local culture.   
 “Spanish colonization brought with it, along with all the other cultural changes, Spanish drama forms. The earliest to establish itself was the religious drama, an obvious and powerful way to teach religion, being aural, visual, and participatory,” wrote the late food writer, cultural researcher and professor Doreen G. Fernandez in her book Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 1996). “Soon, the Filipino’s year came to follow the liturgical calendar, marked by osana, sinakulo, salubong, and the like at Holy Week; in May by santakrusan and tibag to celebrate the finding of the Holy Cross, and Flores de Mayo and other similar observances to honor the feasts or attributes of Mary; by pangangaluluwa on All Souls’ Day in November; and by panunuluyan and pastores and tatlong hari at Christmastime; and by various other dramas and dramatizations designed by parish priests and their assistants or by the fertile folk imagination.”
Fernandez classified these religious dramatizations into two, according to length: The full-length dramas that include the sinakulo, and the short dramatizations like the salubong and panunuluyan.
The panunuluyan (literally, “search for shelter”), also called panuluyan, pananawagan and pananapatan, is most known to be held by the Tagalogs of Central and Southern Luzon but in recent years has mostly vanished, especially in urbanized communities. Several parts of the Bicol Region in southeastern Luzon Island have a similar practice called kagharong or kagharong-harong.
            “The Panunuluyan is the Philippine version of a Mexican Christmas tradition that dates back to the 16th century,” explained writer Alejandro R. Roces in “Panunuluyan: A Mexican Christmas in the Philippines,” part of his column “Roses and Thorns” in The Philippine Star (December, 18, 2007). “The las posadas, meaning ‘the inns,’ was first conceived by St. John of the Cross in 1580 as a processional version of the Holy Family’s journey to Bethlehem and subsequent search for lodging. Seven years later it was introduced in Mexico by Roman Catholic missionaries. From there, it rapidly spread through Latin America, and even to the Philippines via the galleon trade.”
            The Mexican tradition is held for nine nights. “A candle-lit procession of neighborhood children and adults will journey to three pre-selected homes (representing inns) seeking shelter for Joseph and Mary,” Roces described. “The Holy Couple is usually represented by either two small statues or children. At the first two homes, the heartfelt request of Joseph for shelter is rejected; but at the third home the request is accepted, the doors to the home are flung open and the pilgrims are greeted by a table laid out with traditional Christmas fare. A communal celebration ensues, including a star-shaped piñata for the children and a hot beverage called ponche for adults. Each night this ritual is performed with the procession ending in different homes. On the ninth night, or noche buena, the pilgrims re-enact the birth of Christ in the final home.”
“In the Philippines, the Panunuluyan, meaning ‘looking for lodging,’ is celebrated on Christmas Eve,” he further wrote. “To begin the event, images of Mary and Joseph are wheeled from the church courtyard, usually accompanied by two singers. They journey to three or four homes that represent inns, sing their plight and request for shelter. The innkeepers, played by a choir, inform them that the inn is full. In the end, the Holy Couple returns to the Church for the Nativity and at the stroke of midnight appear at the altar amid great rejoicing.”
            Kawiteños have transformed this simple ritual into a spectacle that is the maytinis. The origin of the name maytinis is also cannot be ascertained but it is assumed that it came from the Latin matins, evening prayers or nocturnal liturgy that ends at dawn. There are other Christmas Eve traditions that are also called maytinis. The maytinis of some towns and cities of Pampanga—San Fernando, Magalang, Mabalacat and Mexico—consists of a procession of images of saints, accompanied by colorful lanterns, some in the shape of a fish, the symbol of Jesus Christ and singing choirs. The Kawit maytinis is different by having live people on floats, instead of religious images on carrozas, performing and accompanying the panunuluyan reenactment.
             The maytinis is organized and overseen by the Confradia de Sagrada Familia in coordination with the parish church. The religious lay organization chooses an Ama and an Ina (literally, “father and mother”) for the event, equivalent to the hermano mayor and hermana mayor of Philippine fiestas, who financially support and oversee the event.
In early December 2015, the Ama and Ina of the maytinis of the previous year bade farewell and new ones were proclaimed, most likely, signaling the start of the Christmas season in Kawit. Like the rest of the country, the Misa de Gallo (literally, Mass of the Rooster) or simbang gabi, the dawn masses, were celebrated for nine days, from December 16 to 24.
On December 24, marching bands assembled by the church by two in the afternoon, rehearsing and doing exhibitions before parading around the town. This signalled the start of the maytinis the way the diana signals the start of a fiesta celebration in some parts of the Philippines.
By four, the floats were assembled in Binakayan Kanluran. Usually, the float parade starts at the church, with Liturgy of the Word and readings from the Bible officiated by the parish priest, but sometimes it also starts at the resident barangay of the current Ama or Ina. An hour later, the bands and the pastores gathered in Marulas. As the sun began to set, streaking the sky with vermillion and tangerine, the maytinis procession readied itself and began at seven in the evening. From Binakayan Kanluran, it went to Marulas, Kaingen, Wakas, Poblacion and the church.
There were sixteen floats for this year, each one sponsored and created by the town’s barangays, civic organizations or private companies. A barangay can be designated the same float for several years.
As a whole, the floats depict the Christian salvation history starting from the commission of the Original Sin by Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus Christ, who is promised to save mankind from sin.
At the head of the parade was surprisingly a non-religious float called “Inang Pilipinas” (Mother Philippines), which in previous years concluded the parade, an obviously recent and local addition. This emphasized the fact that the Philippines is the only predominantly Catholic nation in Asia, which is interpreted as having a special role in world salvation as expressed in its slogan “Ang Pilipinas ang Diyos ang pumili/Bansang Asya, kaligtasa’y ibahagi” (The Philippines God has chosen/To Asia, salvation is imparted). This is the only non-Biblical float this year. Other non-Biblical floats in maytinis history included the EDSA People’s Power Revolution-inspired one in 1986.
            The following floats were inspired by the Bible, starting with “Adan at Eba” (Adam and Eve) with a fake tree lade with shiny red apples, showing the temptation and the entry of sin. “La Purisima Concepcion” (Conception Most Pure) told about the prophecy that a virgin birth will save the world from sin. Other floats were “Si Noe at ang Baha (Noah and the Flood), showing a small model on the ark atop a mountain; Moises (Moses), holding the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments; “Haring David (King David), with his wives; Haring Solomon (King Solomon); Si Ruth at si Noemi (Ruth and Naomi), emphasizing respect for parents; “Samson at Delilah” (Samson and Delilah); “Infanta Judith,” a Deuterocanonical character in gladiator dress and bearing the severed head of Holofornes; “Reyna Ester” (Queen Esther); “Pagbati” (Annunciation), showing the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary; “Pagdalaw” (Visitation), enacting Mary’s visit to cousin Elizabeth; “Panuluyan (Search for Inn), with Mary riding a donkey and Joseph; “Pagbabalita ng Anghel (Tidings of the Angel), with an angel appearing to kids dressed as shepherds and bearing a banner saying “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” to announce the birth of Jesus Christ; and “Ang Pangako ng Diyos kay Zacarias” (God's Promise to Zacariah),with an angel appearing to Zacariah to tell the news that he and his Elizabeth will have a child.
Through the years, at least in the recent years, the number of floats averages from fifteen to seventeen. The exclusion and addition of floats are caused by a number of factors—from float sponsors not able to meet deadline to the desire to add new ideas. Additional floats can be non-religious. In 1986, a float was included inspired by the EDSA People Power revolution, which may have inspired the idea of having a fixed “patriotic” float such as the “Inang Pilipinas.” The floats on Abraham and Amos were absent in 2015. Some floats also changed the tableau of a character. The Moses float, for example, was previously depicted asAng Pagliligtas sa Sangggol na si Moises” (The Saving of Baby Moses) and the King David float was “David and Goliath.” In this process, the parade has grown to be bigger.
Writer Marla Yotoko Chorengel related in the book Pasko!: The Philippine Christmas (National Bookstore and Anvil Publishing, Pasig City, 1998) that the traditional floats were “Talang Maliwanag (Brilliant Star), Divina Pastora (Divine Shepherdess), Siete Archangeles (Seven Archangels) and Rosa Mistica (Mystic Rose).”
 “In the late ‘70s, these were eliminated and replaced by Prophet Amos, Abraham, Infanta Judith and Queen Esther,” she wrote. “Changes met with objections, resentment and controversy amongst the residents, but in time, lectures and seminars on why the move was made enlightened the people. Dissenters finally accepted the loss of the well-loved familiar images and welcomed the new participants and their relevance to the present Maytinis.”
With the number of floats, the designs of the floats and the costumes have of course changed, getting more elaborate or showier to excite the people.
Being folk endeavors, the depictions in the floats are not entirely historically accurate but stylized according to folk sensibilities and popular culture, and thus riddled with anachronistic elements. The tableaux are a curious melange of designs and motifs culled from movies and illustrated books of Biblical stories, other folk dramatizations such as the sinakulo, and the people’s imagination and perception of a culture thousands of miles away and thousands of years in the past.   
            Tableaux of outdoors are filled with hills and mountains made of wood and paper, and lots of potted plants, while the indoors have Grecian and Neoclassical pillars and urns. The costumes also tend to be gaudy, especially on characters of royalty such as Queen Esther and King Solomon, not far from the santacruzan, a popular parade about the finding of the True Cross that has assumed the look of pageantry.  
            Often, as much as the floats, the persons playing the roles of the Biblical characters are also a source of spectacle. Traditionally, the players were picked from the townspeople. While this is still done, picking the good-looking ones, the organizers have also recently been getting models from the outside of the town. More the noticeable are the attractive boys, who play Adam, angels and kings, often in costumes that, in crafty ways show, their beauty. Often marginalized in main church affairs, gay expressions manifest in events that blend show and ceremony such as the maytinis and santacruzan, etc. and the more “creative” aspect of church operations such as choir management, and dressing and care of images. The eye-catching maytinis players have become a continuous source of delight and, to others, a distraction from the religiousness of the affair. While it is still overwhelming Hispanic-Filipino religious in nature, the event has become interesting and even charming with the blend of Filipino folk creative sensibilities and articulations of gay desire.
While the parade was going around the town, the church was in total dark, as if a theater readying for a show, but already brimming with people. The aged façade, relatively austere in its locally modified Baroque design and its palitada chipped off over the years to show bricks and stones, and the bell tower were outlined with Christmas lights. 
As Mary and Joseph entered the church by past ten in the evening, after being refused by “innkeepers” and their entourage of floats had drifted away to their keepers, the lights were switched on. Little angels and shepherds sang as they walked towards the altar, transformed into the belen, the Nativity scene. The church was festooned with pine branches and other Christmas decorations. The domed ceiling at the altar was painted cerulean with twinkling stars. Where the elaborate baroque retablo was placed was now a cave. As shepherds sang “Vamos a Belen,” angels led the couple to the cave, to the manger, and the curtains were drawn down. The curtains were drawn up to reveal the life-size statues of the Holy Family. The choir burst into songs, announcing the birth of Jesus Christ. The Misa de Aguinaldo (Mass of the Gift) then commenced, ending with churchgoers queuing up to pay respect to the infant Jesus, many kissing His feet.
Outside the church, food stalls were steaming to make puto bumbong and bibingka, most popular Filipino Christmas fares, particularly among the Tagalog and Pampangan. After the mass, parishioners went home for the traditional Noche Buena feast, shared among family members, friends or neighbors.
The maytinis have been much loved by many Kawiteños that they even brought the tradition with them. Kawiteños who have migrated to the United States, specifically in Southern California, yearly hold maytinis float parades in San Diego with a program of music and entertainment for about forty years now.
            In Cavite, being just adjacent to Metro Manila, urbanization has been spreading, bringing along its myriad of influences, good and bad, and there are pockets of old traditions that are still in place even though changing with the times.
“The Philippine Christmas..is still very much rooted in religion and faith in spite of growing materialism and commercialism, and diminishing religious zeal,” noted Chorengel.




Inang Pilipinas