‘Todos los Santos’

Long before we had Loyola Memorial Park, St. Peter’s, Eternal Gardens, Heritage Memorial Park and all sorts of columbariums, there was La Loma Catholic Cemetery, the Cementerio del Norte (Manila North Cemetery), Manila South Cemetery, and the Manila Chinese Cemetery. I have not heard of the Manila East or West cemeteries. The cemeteries I read about in old periodicals are called: Paz (for rest in peace), Rizal (of course), Nacional (for the nationalistic), and Quiogue. Today, there is a wide range of choice: Arlington, Elysium, Everliving, Filipinas, Paraiso, and even Oro (gold). Cosmopolitan that I have visited recently is my favorite because it does not seem like a funeral parlor. Or maybe it was just the way it was set up with a buffet for hot meals and even stalls for “merienda” like Potato Corner and French Baker. I was half hoping they had a “chicharon” corner. Too bad it is bad luck (or bad form) to take home food from a funeral.

Early in my career, I was advised by seniors like the anthropologist E. Arsenio Manuel and the historian Esteban de Ocampo not only to see but to notice things in cemeteries. One could literally read history off tombstones and it was important to note down dates of birth and death of famous or historical people not from Google or Wikipedia, but from tombstones. Whenever I visit an old church, my first round of the interior is to look up the main features from door to nave: baptistry, confessional, altar, side chapels, etc. On the second pass, I read all the tombstones on the walls and on the floor. Sometimes I go to the cemetery at the back of the church in search of the historical, the famous, or even the infamous.

“R.I.P” reminds me of the current college history course, “Readings In Philippine History.” It comes from the Latin phrase “Requiescat in pace” or the English translation “Rest in peace.” The Spanish version is “E.P.D” not for “Eastern Police District” but “en paz descanse.” Other letters I see in old tombstones are “D.O.M.” that my father used to say in jest meant “Dirty Old Man” is actually from the Latin “Deo (or Domino) Optimo Maximo,” “To God (The Lord) most good, most great.” In Tagalog tombstones, they use “S.L.N.” for “sumalangit nawa” (may the soul be in heaven). Growing up, I heard some people mispronounce cemetery as “cementery” thinking it is the English translation of “sementeryo.” The other words for cemetery I heard from older folks were “camposanto” (holy field or hallowed ground) or “pantyon” for pantheon.

Nov. 1 was one of the family reunions I looked forward to. There was a lot of food to be had often “balut, puto, panara,” and “ube guinataan.” The boys roamed around the cemetery taking melted wax from votive candles and forming this into balls. It was a time to reminisce, to laugh, sometimes to pray if a priest passed by to bless the tombs for a donation. Modern, air-conditioned mortuary chapels or columbariums are definitely more comfortable than the crowded old-fashioned cemetery, but these do not provide the simple joys of my childhood, “Todos los Santos.”

It is said that the belief in an afterlife is a marker of civilization. It shows that humans, unlike animals, treat their dead differently. From the prehistoric “Manunggul Jar” topped with two monkey-like figures on a boat to our age of “e-burol” or Zoom Masses and novenas for the dead, the development of Todos los Santos in the Philippines is worth more than one doctoral dissertation. To help in this effort, I have collected many photographs of funerals from antique shops over the years. One of the classifications in my photo collection are for “Recuerdos de Patay” (Souvenirs of the Dead). These post-mortem photographs were acquired cheaply then because they were found morbid or gruesome. But it seems there are people who now specialize in these pictures. I used to think that the custom of having family and friends pose by the coffin for a formal souvenir began to wane in the postwar years. More so, the ones where the corpse was made to sit up in an open coffin for a better picture. Well, Recuerdos de Patay has been revived in the Age of the Selfie and someone should start collecting those too.

Each year on Nov. 1, I remember the Rizals and their recuerdos de patay. A piece of Jose Rizal’s vertebra is displayed in a reliquary in Fort Santiago. This was not interred with the rest of the hero’s remains under the Rizal Monument, and was picked out because it is believed that the chip on the bone marks the spot where the bullet snuffed out his life. One of the famous prewar postcards was called “Craneo de Rizal” (Rizal’s skull). There is a series of photographs of Teodora Alonso, the hero’s mother, from her last illness to her lying under glass in a coffin. Then there is the hero’s elder brother, Paciano, who refused to be photographed in his lifetime. He could not complain when a snapshot was taken of his corpse before burial. I should post these online sometime.

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