DUMAGUETE CITY – For 82-year-old Sylvia T. Vendiola, celebrating Christmas in her native town of Bacong in Negros Oriental would not be complete without the age-old tradition of the “Padalagan sa Bitoon (race of the stars)” which she and other Roman Catholic Church members look forward to every year during the holiday season.
Vendiola, an active member of the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) of the St. Augustine of Hippo Parish in Bacong, said that the “Padalagan sa Bitoon” has been around since she was still a child and the Catholic Church in her hometown shifts into a festive mood with this particular event.
It begins on the first day of the nine-day Aguinaldo (dawn) novena masses prior to the Christmas Eve Eucharistic celebration through the Feast of the Three Kings, which falls sometime in early January.
The “Padalagan sa Bitoon,” an informal name given to the activity, involves the attaching of two huge stars to ropes with pulleys which allow them to travel from the choir loft above the main entryway of the church down the aisle to the altar and then back.
Apart from the stars, another object in the form of a cloud, which the locals call “nubi” (cloud), hangs from the ceiling at the altar and keeps on flapping up and down during the mass but springs a “surprise” during the Christmas Eve mass.
Also part of the entire production is the “Belen” or the Nativity Scene at the right-hand corner of the church near the altar, where the Child Jesus is lying in a manger surrounded by the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, the three Magi and the other key figures of this popular Christmas scene.
The stars and the “nubi” are put up and remain in their original places on the first Aguinaldo mass on December 16 and thereafter, with the dawn masses held every 4 a.m. until December 24.
But during the Christmas Eve mass, as the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is being sung, and the bells are rung and the Church lights up to welcome the “birth of Jesus”, the stars are released from the choir loft, being pulled speedily to the altar like they were racing against each other.
At the same time, the “nubi” suddenly opens up, letting out an “angel” which is then being pulled straight towards the Nativity scene.
According to Exuferio Tinguha, who has served in the Church as an organist for 29 years, the stars symbolize a comet and the star that had guided the three kings who went in search for the Child Jesus in Bethlehem.
Tinguha, who teaches liturgical music at the local seminary, believes that this entire production during Christmas dates back to more than 100 years.
According to him, he remembers his grandmother, who would have been more than 100 years today if alive, telling him stories about the “Padalagan sa Bitoon.”
It is a tradition that is closely associated to Bacong, he pointed out.
A few other Catholic Churches, like those in Zamboanguita and Siaton, have a similar feat, but these are not quite the same as that of Bacong, he added.
And that is because apart from the stars, the nubi and the Nativity Scene, the Bacong Church choir boasts of singing Latin liturgical music at Christmas, Tinguha said, beaming with pride.
Not only that, Bacong Church, listed as a national cultural treasure, is home to a centuries-old pipe organ, one of the few remaining Spanish pipe organs in the country.
Acquired in the mid-1800s, the pipe organ was restored and completed in October 2009 and now is a main attraction of the church.
Tinguha said that on Christmas Eve, he plays the pipe organ and the choir members, some elderly like 82-year-old Sylvia Vendiola, manage to climb the steep stairs to the choir loft where the musical instrument is situated to sing in the mass.
There are at least 10 members of the choir who sing in Latin, including Vendiola, but the oldest member, 97-year-old Hilario Enoferio, has stopped singing with the group because he could no longer go up the stairs to the choir loft, said Tinguha.
The Bacong way of celebrating Christmas is truly a unique experience for outsiders and a tradition that must be continued for the next generations, according to Simplicia Baro, a member of the municipal council.
The 74-year-old councilor, who is also an active Church volunteer and the president of the Sacred Heart Organization in Bacong, describes the Christmas spirit of their town as truly a “bayanihan” example.
Volunteers craft the stars and the “nubi”, put them up inside the church, put up the Nativity Scene and even donate the banana plants with clusters of fruits – a common Filipino tradition known simply as the banana “belen”, she says.
People in Bacong even provide for the snacks for the volunteers, she goes on.
As for the “banana belen”, it is also an old tradition where people put up the banana plants with fruits on their doorways, so that when carolers come, the homeowners give the fruits to them instead of coins or candies as is practiced in modern day, she said.
The parish priest of Bacong, Msgr. Julius Perpetuo S. Heruela, explained the religious significance of all this, saying that these are catechetical practices that reflect the faith and spirituality of the Catholic faithful.
“Symbols speak a lot,” he explains, citing that of the “nubi” that opens and lets out an angel, likening it to the opening of the heavens with the angels coming down and singing “Glory to God in the Highest” in celebration of Christ’s birth.
The “belen” or the Nativity Scene is also catechetical, and is biblical as expressly described in the Bible, just as the stars are also aptly depicted as what is written about the Three Kings who were guided by the Star of Bethlehem, he said.
These are practices that are catechetical with priests of the olden days using such symbols to make it easier for the people to know and understand the life of Christ, he added.
And because the celebration of Christmas culminates during the Feast of the Three Kings, it is also aptly portrayed that on this day, when the Magi “go home”, that the stars also “depart” in this Bacong Church production.
Thus, on the Feast of the Three Kings, the stars are once more made to “travel” this time from the altar back down the aisle to the choir loft.
The culmination of the Christmas celebration in Bacong on this day picks up and becomes more cheerful, with people in high spirits and full of joy, as some of them, including children and adults, running after the stars, believing that they receive abundance of blessings by doing so.
In some instances, candies and coins are distributed to the children.
While the “Padagan sa Bitoon” may seem to be a repetition of the previous years’ production, every Christmas is always a different experience and it leaves the people with a joyful appreciation of the blessings that they receive all year round as they look forward to it the following year, said the parish priest. (PNA)
