TACLOBAN CITY, Dec. 20 – The spirit of giving this Christmas is very alive among Leyte folks, from bringing cheers to flood victims to singing Christmas carols to poor families.
Moved by photographs of flood devastation in the town of Jipapad, Eastern Samar, Tacloban-based media workers conceptualized a gift-giving activity for flood victims.
Journalist Marie Tonette Grace Marticio launched an online campaign, asking donations for 100 flood-hit families. Some contributed cash, noche buena items, clothes, school supplies, toys, vitamins, medicines, and shoes. Among the biggest contributors are her media colleagues.
On Sunday, Marticio and her friends took a six-hour overnight trip from this city to Jipapad town to deliver the early Christmas gifts on board a military truck of the 14th Infantry Battalion.
“It was a very tiring trip, but the feeling was overshadowed when we saw the smiles of children coming out of evacuation centers. Some shouted for joy and said thank you for the Christmas gifts,” Marticio recalled.
Jipapad town suffered widespread flood last Nov. 22 when a tropical depression crossed Eastern Samar province.
With the kick-off of the Christmas tradition of Misa de Gallo or the dawn masses, children and even teens are on their feet, hopping from one house to another every night singing Joy to the World, Jingle Bells, Silent Night and traditional Filipino Christmas carols. Singers usually expect to receive cash from house owners.
They usually have hand-made musical instruments like tambourine made from bottle caps, cans or biscuit tins used as drums.
After receiving money, children would sing "Thank you, thank you, "ang babait ninyo (you’re all so kind)". If by chance you ignore them, children would sing "Thank you, thank you, "ang babarat ninyo (you’re a haggler)", and leave ones front yard laughing.
Over the past few years, tricycle driver Emmanuel Alcober, 54, of Tanauan, Leyte noticed that some house owners would bar the children from singing particularly those out of tune and citing the wrong lyrics.
“Some even close their doors and turn off the lights just to make carollers believe that nobody is at home. Some tell carolers to return on Christmas Day,” he said.
Public school teacher Lemuel Pagliawan, 35, of Palo, Leyte observed that “if you give money to a group of children, they would tell others to go and sing at your doorstep because you are generous”.
“With the rising inflation rate, it would be financially challenging for someone to give money to every carolers every night for nine days before Christmas,” Pagliawan added.
Rodel Almeria, a local leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Tanauan, Leyte said they want to change the mindset of singing Christmas carols by giving gifts to house owners “instead of us receiving money from them”.
Under the church’s Light the World campaign, Almeria’s group listed about a hundred poor families to receive a gift pack with rice, canned goods, and noche buena items. Church members contribute cash for the nightly activity.
“We’re about to hand them (caroling group) PHP20, but they refused. Instead, they handed to me a gift pack. This is a very unique Christmas tradition,” said Joenil Solayao, 33, a father of eight. His family earns from collecting recyclable materials.
Almeria said they have been practicing the gift-giving activity in the past two years, emulating the Three Wise Men from the east who worshipped the child Jesus. “And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh,” he said. (SQM/PNA)
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