Births, deaths

SOME OF you are probably feeling you’ve overdosed on articles that either pertain to the 7 billionth baby or to the dead, ghosts and cemeteries.

But let me give a new twist to the stories on births and deaths and introduce you, painlessly, to two social sciences: archaeology and demography.

Let’s start with a quick quiz. “Patay!” I can hear some of you exclaiming in protest, but I have just one easy question: What’s the oldest known burial place in the Philippines?  You’re probably thinking of old churches now—which is a good start—or Paco Park. But old as they are, with great historical value, these places only date back to the Spanish colonial period.

Archaeologists are actually grave diggers, many of their most informative sites being graves and cemeteries, where the dead are often interred with all kinds of goods which tell us about how they lived. Of course after being dug up, the goods are called artifacts and some of these make their way, illegally, into antique shops.

Back to the oldest burial place. That was a trick question. The oldest known human remains in the Philippines are those found in Tabon Cave (actually a series of caves) in Palawan.  All introductory courses for anthropology, archaeology and history will mention the “Tabon Man,” referring to a skull cap, one of the many bones excavated from Tabon Cave. This “Tabon Man” is estimated to be about 47,000  (plus or minus 11,000) years.

By human here I’m referring to Homo sapiens.  Last year a team of archaeologists from the University of the Philippines, National Museum, Australian National University and French National Museum of Natural History made the front page of local newspapers with the discovery of one toe bone in Callao Cave, Cagayan. The bone has an estimated minimum age of 66,700 years. The archaeologists cautiously described the toe as “hominin,” meaning one of our relatives probably also belonging to the Homo genus, but not the same species as we are.

Cemeteries as we know them today, with large numbers of graves, are a recent development.  Even today in many parts of the world, the Philippines included, people might bury the dead in their backyard, or somewhere close to where they live.  We do have laws now that prohibit such burials because of public health hazards.

The use of cemeteries became more widespread during the Spanish colonial period.  People living in or close to the poblacion or town center would bury their dead in the churchyard or, in the case of the wealthier parishioners, within the church, their tombstones proclaiming the local who’s who. These graveyards, together with written records like parish birth and death registers, can tell many tales about the town: child mortality, life expectancy, even epidemics and disasters (during which several corpses might be hastily buried together).

This is where the demographers come in.  Demographers look at births and deaths, settlement sizes and migration. Demographers were the ones who estimated when our population migh reach 7 billion.  Understandably, there are always disagreements with these calculations since there is no way we can actually do a global count.

‘Katipuneros’ and Masons

I’ll return to the global population shortly, but first I want to go back to our Catholic churchyards. A church burial was an important indicator that one was in good standing with the Catholic Church. The Spanish friars were said to have threatened Manila’s residents with non-burial in La Loma, a Catholic cemetery, if they supported the Katipuneros.  Even today, the Catholic clergy can be quite stubborn about refusing church burials for people who committed suicide, or for Masons, as in the case of a high-ranking government official a few months ago.

Municipal cemeteries date to the American colonial period, and provided an alternative to the Catholic churchyards.  The North Cemetery in Manila is the largest, with the gaps between the rich and the poor reflected in the huge mauseoleums of the rich and famous, and the “condominium-type” graves of the poor, stacked one on top of the other.  It has a section for Masons, probably those who could not be buried in La Loma, which was a Catholic cemetery.

The Chinese also put up their own cemeteries since those who did not convert to Catholicism could not be buried in the churchyards.  The first one was put up in Manila right next to the North Cemetery. Today, Chinese cemeteries are found in several major cities in the Philippines, but the one in Manila is still the most opulent; here, one can even find air-conditioned mausoleums (the air-con units turned on only on All Saints’ Day).

Memorial parks came about only in the last 50 years or so, and allowed Filipinos to go full-blast with chaotic festivities for the dead.  I’m actually glad that churches are attracting the dead (or their relatives) again with columbaries or niches for ashes. Several years ago my mother organized an exodus from the Chinese cemetery, exhuming our relatives and having their remains cremated and transferred to a church crypt with a more solemn, and restful, ambience.

Those being threatened with excommunication for their support of reproductive health shouldn’t worry since there are now secular columbaries as well, some in memorial parks that have caught on to the new trend, offering their own cremation facilities and niches.

One last story about cemeteries. The Santa Ana church was one of the earliest to be excavated by archaeologists, yielding many finds dating back to the pre-colonial period. Among the interesting finds were the remains of a dog, apparently a pet buried with affection. This inspired Isabel Escoda to write a children’s book titled “Once Upon a Hilltop.” Published in 1962, the book is now out of print.

What’s your number?

Let me leave the dead now and get back to the living and the births.  As I mentioned earlier, there is no way to establish just how many people we have now on the planet. The 7 billion mark is an estimate, with many countries, including the Philippines, identifying a symbolic 7-billionth baby just to highlight the need to think of our demographics, and how each birth challenges families, communities and nations with new responsibilities. Somewhat lost in the 7-billion brouhaha was the estimate that the Philippines now has a population of 94.6 million, the 12th largest in the world.

Just so the numbers sink in at a personal level, there’s a site you can visit where you can input your birthday and get a number, a kind of demographic ID which tells you how many co-earthlings you had when you were born.  I did that and found out that when I was born, only about 60 years ago, the world’s population was about 2.5 billion. That means the world’s population has increased by 280 percent since then.

Someone should put up a site to calculate a Philippine ID number. The Philippine population was about 21.5 million the year I was born, which means it’s increased by 440 percent.

Check your global ID number here: populationaction.org/Articles/Whats_Your_Number/Summary.php