‘Out of sync’

If you haven’t done so yet, it’s not too late to get a piece of chalk or charcoal and write the following good luck charm on top of your main door: “+20+C+M+B+12.” If you are in the mood, you can mark all doors and leave them on for the rest of the year. This ancient German tradition was brought to the Philippines by the Benedictine sisters of Tutzing, who are better known for their schools and convents-—all called St. Scholastica’s—in Manila, Pampanga, Antipolo, Baguio, Cebu, etc. Crosses are lucky symbols anywhere except on test papers where they are tilted to form an “X.”

The numbers in the good luck charm correspond to the present year 2012, and the letters correspond to the names of the Three Kings whose feast used to be celebrated on Jan. 6, but has since been moved to the Sunday after New Year and is now known as Epiphany. These letters can also mean Christus Mansionem Benedicat (Christ bless our home).

Contrary to popular belief the Bible does not give us the names of these “Wise Men” (Magi) who came to adore the child in the manger in Bethlehem that first Christmas. Nowhere in the biblical texts are the Magi referred to as “Kings.” We do not even know how many Magi there were! They are known as Three Kings because each brought an expensive present: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Their names have come down to us from tradition: Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar. Little wonder that two centuries ago when a baby girl was born in Banlat, Balintawak [now Quezon City], to Juan and Valentina Aquino on Jan. 6, 1812, they picked a name off a calendar. They discarded Caspar and Baltazar, added an “a” to the end of the remaining name to make it feminine and left us with a name highlighted in history—Melchora Aquino, (ma)Tandang Sora, Mother of the Philippine Revolution.

I forgot to write +20+C+M+B+12 atop my door when the city bid 2011 goodbye and greeted 2012 with fireworks that filled the air with gunpowder smoke so dense that airplanes couldn’t land in Naia on Jan. 1 because of poor visibility. I rationalized, I could still do the ritual late on other dates like: Jan. 6, the original Feast of the Three Kings; Jan. 8, the Epiphany; or at the very least on Jan. 23, the Chinese New Year! These excuses for my forgetfulness made me realize that our 2012 schedule of holidays has celebrations we didn’t have before: Chinese New Year and Muslim holidays. These should remind us that we live in a changing world and that while the Philippines is predominantly Catholic, we Filipinos shouldn’t forget that there are other faiths equally acknowledged and protected by the State and the Constitution.

Filipino reckoning of time must have been different before the Spanish colonization in the 16th century, when our ancestors counted days by the sun, and noted changes in the shape of the moon to determine months. Our calendar has long been a Western Gregorian calendar which explains why official documents still refer to years with the initials A.D. for Anno Domini [Year of Our Lord]. What is not very well known though is that the Philippines was “out of sync” with the rest of the world, after it followed the Gregorian calendar, for over three centuries. This begins all the way back to the time Magellan made the mistake of stepping on our shores in 1521. Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of the Magellan expedition, was not aware that they had crossed the International Date Line and kept reckoning days from their departure in Europe.

Pigafetta should have added a day when he revised his notes for publication or official use. When the lone ship, the Victoria, with the survivors of the Battle of Mactan arrived back in Europe, he noticed that they had lost a day. Pigafetta kept a day-to-day diary and was surprised to find his log one day behind European time.

This mistake was remedied only in 1844, when Spanish Governor General Narciso Claveria, decreed that Tuesday, Dec. 31, 1844, would be changed to Jan. 1, 1845, and all calendars should be adjusted accordingly.

Claveria is better known as the governor who decreed, for tax and census purposes, that all Filipinos should have surnames chosen from the Catalogo alfabetico de apellidos (1849). The Claveria decree fixing our calendar, translated from the original Spanish, is but one of the many obscure but interesting materials compiled by the late Gregorio Zaide in the 12-volume “Documentary Sources of Philippine History.” It reads as follows:

“Superior Government of the Philippines. Considering it convenient to make the reckoning of days in these islands uniform with that in Europe, China, and other countries situated east of the Cape of Good Hope, whose calendars are one day ahead of ours for reasons which are well known to all, I order with the consent of the Archbishop [of Manila His Grace Jose Segui] that for this year only is suppressed Tuesday the 31st of December, as if it has really passed, and that the day following Monday, the 30th of the same month, will be reckoned as January 1, 1845, beginning of the calendar of said year, without the necessity of alteration.”

From 1521 to 1844, the Philippine calendar was one day behind the rest of the world and it had to take a seemingly obsessive compulsive Spanish governor general to adjust the calendar and bring the islands “in sync” with the rest of the world.

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