Skip to main content

SANTA CLARANG PINUNG-PINO - Philippine Folk Song (Tagalog)

Annually, Obando town in Bulacan honors three saints – Santa Clara (the most famous of the three), La Virgen de Salambao, and San Pascual Baylon. Each saint has a feast day set aside where they are moved in a procession accompanied by dancing through the narrow streets of the town. The women devotee-dancers are dressed in bright baro’t saya or balintawak with matching flowered hat, waving buri fans which are similarly decorated with flowers and colorful ribbons. Men sport camisa de chinos of old while others use contemporary flowered shirts.

Each saint is prayed to for specific favors sought – Santa Clara for a female mate, San Pascual for a male mate and the Virgen de Salambao, for a child. Different saints for different favors cause devotees to pray to a different saint for a different favor in a merry mix-up confusion. The sure-fire solution was to pray to all three in one kneeling. In fact, Santa Clara is always inadvertently approached by barren couples for a child.

The Obando triumvirate of saints hold such strong influence on the devotees that dances of fertility and for other intentions were popularized. People from far and near come to pray, dance, make merry and get high. This feeling of highness is what is brought back home and shared with families and townmates.

The music of this song is the most popular accompaniment to a throng of devotees dancing on the streets of Obando in a native dance called Pandanggo Santa Clara or simply Sayaw sa Obando. The music is traditionally played by a brass band or the native musikong bumbong, a local band with instruments made entirely of bamboo.

In nearby Malabon and Navotas devotees who missed performing their annual pilgrimage to Obando, await with great eagerness the return of their townmates from Obando. A brass band or the unique musikong bumbong (bamboo orchestra) provide welcome music playing the same tune and other popular 3/4 time pieces to which the devotees swing and sway lining up in a procession while carrying estandartes or large cloth frames with pictures of saints. Their intention is to duplicate Obando’s magical enchantment and the high that the devotees achieve. Dance for San Pascual Baylon, “magbayluhan tayo!

The song can be translated: The finest Saint Claire (of Assisi)/ My vow is this: / If I reach Obando (for my pilgrimage)/ I will dance the pandanggo. // Aruray, araruray, I will fulfill my vow/ Aruray, araruray, I will fulfill my vow. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Laygay Samarnon Series, No. 4 - "AN IROY NGA TUNA" (Samar-Leyte)

Scanning through my collection of Philippine folk song books, I find it easier to find samples of songs which express pride of one's ethnicity, especially, the noteworthy virtues of each people group's maidens/womenfolk: industrious, beautiful, socially-accomplished, good example, modest, peerless, and so on. Folk songs like the Babaeng Bikolana, the Kapampangan  Ing Manai, the Tagalog Ang Dalagang Tagabukid and Lulay ; the Waray An Marol (featured earlier in this blog's series, No. 3) , the Ilocana a Nadayag and the Daragang Taga-Cuyo  of Palawan all take pride in the prime qualities of their womenfolk. However, our love for the Filipinoness outside our own ethnicity is rather rare in the themes of our folk songs. That could be safe, probably, to presume that there could be a lot of folk songs which embody the ardent love for one's place of origin: a town, a province, an island, a region or an island group; however, for folk songs with theme of love for our country co...

INDAW SA BALITAW - Philippine Folk Song (Tagalog)

This old song might have been very famous during the late part of the 19th century. Its music appeared in many scores around that time, say for example, in Manuel Walls y Merino' s La Musica Popular de Filipinas  its music was presented as El Balitao. Merino's short description of this balitaw  (dance-song) is very interesting, and is here quoted in its entirety as translated to English: " This dance is the most popular in the Philippines. It is generally played more than it is danced, and its figures come to be a specie of jota, although without the variety and elegance of this. It is usually played by bands or orchestras, or simply by guitars. This dance is so popular and the Indios have so much affection to it, that it is often said that as an indigenous person hears the balitaw, even if his father has died, he begins to dance it. "   During the America era, this song again appeared in the "Philippine Music Horizons" as the " Kettle Song " or th...