Church of St. James, circa 1950.
The Richard E. Alhborn Collection, Tulane University Latin-American Library.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS PAETE, LAGUNA?

PAETE (Pi-tè). A town in Laguna province of the archipelago-republic of the Philippines (population: 21,809), situated between 14 degrees and 16 degrees N and 120 degrees and 122 degrees E, about 113 kilometers southeast of Manila in the island of Luzon.

Paete lies at the foot of the green Sierra Madre mountains looking northwest halfway across the water towards Mabitac hill peninsula and on to what seems to be infinity itself. One does not see Manila from here. The silvery water is not the China Sea, but simply Laguna de Bay (Lake of Ba-i), the largest lake in southeast Asia.

Come in, meet the people of this most interesting place who are conscious of their history and proud of their cultural, religious and artistic heritage. You will find some of us eccentric, but that's because having been raised in a near-bohemian tradition, we are never overly concerned with appearances.

Paete is home to the lanzones fruit, the "ukit" (woodcarving), the "bakya" (Philippine woodenshoes), the gayly painted papier-mache "taka", the yo-yo and other toys...and the magical stories, songs and poems that the people themselves weave in their various celebrations and day-to-day living.

Over the years, the town has had its share of poverty, earthquakes, wars, typhoons and fires. But surely as the trees and vines cometo life again, our quest for the true and the beautiful continues. This gives Paete strength to survive yet a few more catastrophes and to enjoy the good life in between.

HOW TO GET TO PAETE

From the north, the winding road from Manila travels away from the lakeshore for many miles eastward - then turns southward, following the shape of the lake, past little towns and marshy ricefields, and on across the mouth of a narrow river filled with dugout fishing canoes ("bangka"). It then bends hard left to where you get a full view of Paete Church against the backdrop of a lush mountain slope. From there a picturesque waterfall steeply flows to become the river. On top of the hill stand three ancient crosses that approximate those of Calvary itself.  If this sight is breathtaking enoughfor you, by all means, stay.

From the south, another road that has already gone for many miles around three-quarters of the lake from Manila now hugs the foothills and comes upon the crumbling Catholic cemetery amidst a rugged landscape shaded with dense fruit trees, coconut palms, bushes and flowering vines. A number of small streams spring out from the foothills and flow through the town and into the lake. Here and there, in the air many degrees cooler than Manila, you hear the sounds and songs of the woodworking shops.

ORIGIN OF THE WORD "PAETE"

Paete derived its name from "paet", Tagalog word for chisel, the principal tool used in woodcarving. The proper pronunciation of the town's name is probably "Pa-e-te", but natives call it "Pay-ti" (Pi-tè) with the guttural "e" sound at the end. Only when conversing with people not from the place do Paetenians use the tri-syllabic pronunciation, or they would not be understood even by fellow Filipinos. When the American Maryknoll Missioners came to Paete in the late 1950s, they called our town "Piety." We laughed, understood, and loved it!

LANZONES-PAETE

Aside from woodcarving, what makes Paete famous is lanzones. Lanzones (Lansium domesticum, L) is called the "aristocrat" of fruits and it is in Paete that most of it is grown.

It grows out of slender tree in bunches that look much like grapes but with thicker and stronger stems. The fruit is covered with a leathery skin that turns yellow when ripe. Press the fruit between your fingers to open and you will see luscious translucent sections, each containing a bitter seed. You don't eat the seed - just the juicy sweet-sour pulp around it.

Before electricity came to Paete one could swear that stars had come down from the skies on summer nights as tiny twinkling dots lit up the entire face of the mountain. They were not stars, of course - just hundreds of small kerosene lamps that people hang on lanzones trees to drive away birds and bats to prevent them from eating the ripening fruits.

The problem with lanzones as a crop is that it is seasonal. It produces fruits only in late September through early November and the rest of the year you wait. When the fruits are ripe the bunches are gathered and delicately packed in open baskets called "kaing" and sent to merchants in Manila where they are sold as "the food of romance." Courting couples inside movie houses and those taking a stroll in Luneta Park are said to favor this most prized fruit.

Part of the mystique of lanzones is a legend that originated in Paete, told and retold in Filipino children's books, a variation of which made it to Dean S. Fansler's FILIPINO POPULAR TALES (Folklore Assoc., Hatboro, PA 1965), p. 401:

Once upon a time the fruit of the lanzones tree was very poisonous. Its very juice could make a man sick until he dies. One day a very religious old man was passing through a forest to attend the fiesta of a neighboring town. When he reached the middle of the thick forest, he became very hungry and tired and felt he could go no further. No matter where he looked, he could see nothing but the poisonous lanzones. So he lay down on the soft grass. Hardly a moment had passed when a being from heaven approached him and said, 'My good Christian pilgrim, take some of these lanzones fruits, eat them, and you will be much relieved.' At first the old man would not do it but the heavenly being pinched the fruit with her fingers and handed them to the pilgrim. He then ate and soon his hunger was removed. After thanking heaven, he continued on to his pilgrimage. Ever since that time, lazones have been good to eat. All fruits still bear the marks of the heavenly being's fingers.

In Paete we just go right on and identify the "heavenly being" as the Virgin Mary - why quibble? The problem with this story is that no matter how much lanzones one ate, it would not fill one up. While lanzones quenches the thirst, it does not make one feel "busog."

My second disillusionment as regards lanzones from Paete was the belief that it was the sweetest of its kind. That was, until l went to the volcanic Camiguin island in Mindanao, where I saw younger lanzones trees that produced a sweeter kind of fruit. My childhood belief in Lanzones-Paete was shattered.

My third disillusionment was when, looking at a fruit basket that came from Burma - I saw lanzones there! And I thought all the time that lanzones only came from Philippines!

Perhaps I'm not romantic enough, but if there is a Paete fruit that I'd kill for, it's the "mami" (Calucarpum sapota, Jec.) Mami has never been given the same rave reviews as the lanzones, perhaps because it is so rare. In Manila I used to describe mami to friends, but they never heard of it. I firmly believed, then, that mami was grown nowhere else in the world but Paete. Then I went to Mexico where mami is so plentiful, they make a milk shake of it. And yes, they call it mami there, too. So now, I decided that the Paete fruit that I truly love is the "dambo" (Syzygium malaccense, L.) I'm sure dambo is found only in Paete or I would get it in California.

Having said that, the fact remains that for whatever reason, it was lanzones that placed Paete on the country's map. So be it. If you happened to be around Paete during lanzones season, do drop by and have a taste. You might like it more than I do.

THE TOWN THAT GAVE THE WORLD THE YO-YO

It is common knowledge that the yo-yo, a most popular international toy, was invented in the Philippines - but where exactly in the Philippines? In Paete, most likely, because it has always been known for its fine wood products. In Paete, most definitely, because we have it written down in our history. Dr. Eugenio Quesada (1880-1965), the pharmacist-inventor of fountain-pen ink marketed by Parker Pens under the trademark "Quink", writes in his book, PAETE (Author's Publication, 1956, p. 24):

Even the very toys during the early days, which are no longer made at the present time, were noted for their novelty and artistic finesse. Take the yo-yo, which was invented and first made in Paete; and the paper jumping jack which was said to be a toy of our grandfathers. At that time, 1890, no one of us had been abroad because transportation was extremely difficult and yet these (yo-yos and jumping jacks) were so perfectly mechanized and so well polished and painted at home that they looked as if they were imported from Paris..

Another famous toy made in Paete is the "taka" or papier mache in the shape of people and animals (chickens, horses and carabaos, mostly.) Of taka, Quesada writes:

In Paete we likewise had woodcarvings of figures of animals, carts and men or women. The carvings were molded in paper and paste, dried out in the sun, then the molds were surgically taken out of its cast. The product were then put together again, dried another time and painted brightly to be sold as toys.

The taka is perhaps not altogether Filipino. It is the belief of Paetenians that the idea originated in Mexico, and with good evidence: Taka is much like the Mexican "pinata", except that it is painted instead of decorated with cut-out colored paper. And taka is much smaller - small enough for little girls to use them as dolls.

In the early 1970s, taka came of age. Exported to Germany as souvenir mascots for the 1974 Olympic Games, the taka then assumed many more shapes and colors, such as the golden cherubs and reindeers that are now sold in the tonier European and U.S. shops as Christmas ornaments. A filmmaker from the neighboring town of Pangil, who goes under the nom de plume of "Kidlat Tahimik" (Silent Lightning), made a cult movie of Paete's taka industry which was distributed by Francis Ford Coppola and shown in American movie art houses and PBS channels. The movie is entitled, "Turumba", named after a celebration in Paete's next-door neighbor town of Pakil

ROMANCING THE 'BAKYA'

The Filipino "bakya" (wooden clogs) was not invented in Paete but it was in our hometown that it bloomed, bred, was raised to an art form...and died!

Fashioned from light wood initially with the use of the bandsaw, bakya was afterwards smoothly shaved, and carved with floral, geometric or landscape design, then painted or varnished to a high sheen in the distinctive Paete style. Uppers made of clear plastic or thin rubber were then fastened to the sides with tiny nails ("clavitos") and the bakya was ready for export.

In its heyday (1930s to 1950s), American tourists and soldiers bought bakya as souvenirs for their girlfriends and mothers. But for Filipinos, bakya was the footwear for all seasons. You wore them in water or on land. Bakya was easy to get in and out of, which made it convenient for use by people who wore them on the ground but took them off when climbing upstairs into their houses. My mother, Laureana Cajipe, used to say that you could tell how well-mannered a person was by the way he left behind his bakya before entering the house, "Kabastusan yung iiwanan mo ang bakya mo na nakahakbang!"

When I was growing up in the early 50s, bakya shops were veritable channels of Paete culture where apprentices were trained, families worked closely together, traditional songs and poems were passed on to the young, friendships were forged and romances blossomed. Bakya was Paete's rice-and-fish. The industry that fed, clothed, and sheltered us also taught us responsibility and gave us wisdom. It nurtured our dreams and led us to believe that we would grow up to become good people, just like our parents. And Paete prospered.

We knew by heart every step involved in the manufacture of bakya. How men climbed up the mountain to cut down santol and laniti trees and have their carabaos pull down the logs into town. We knew every sharp stone that scraped the logs' bark, the smell of newly-cut wood, the dampness of sawdust under our feet, the fun of playing with wood shavings, the sharp sounds of saws and claps of mallets against the handles of carving tools. We knew the songs and laughter of the men and women engaged in their craft, the smell of almasiga (resin) and alcohol and oil paints. We knew them all and we thought they'd never end.

Then came into the scene Japanese rubber slipper thongs, which were longer-lasting and in one-size-nearly-fits-all. The bakya industry crashed! Today, bakya is used more as a quaint alternative to the unsightly rubber thongs. When the shops fell silent, the supply of remnant wood for fuel was also gone. Young men looked to far-away places in search of jobs (my father being one of them), or fell back into farming.

In the sorry wake of the death of bakya, a derogatory term that added insult to injury emerged among elitist Manila media: "bakya crowd." The term "bakya" came to denote the low-brow, unthinking masses who adored every mediocre Tagalog movie that ever hit "pinilakang tabing." Why "bakya crowd"? - we asked in anger. Why, that stupid crowd did not even wear bakya - they wore Japanese slippers!

Still, we take comfort that bakya survives in culture and in memory. Of the romantic songs that came to us down the ages, nothing was more poignant, more nostalgic, than Ruben Tagalog's "Bakya mo Neneng:"

Bakya mo Neneng,
Luma at kupas pa,
Ngunit may bakas pa
Ng luha mo, sinta!

Sa ala-ala'y
Muling nagbalik pa
Ang dating kahapon,
Tigib ng ligaya.

Ngunit irog ko,
Bakit isang araw,
Ay di mo ginamit
Ang bakya kong inialay?

Sa wari ko ba'y
Di mo na kailangan
Bakyang kinupasan
Ng ganda at kulay.

Ang aking pag-asa'y
Daglit na pumanaw,
Sa bakya mo Neneng
Na di nasilayan,

Kung inaakalang
Iyan ay munting bagay-
Huwag itapon, aking hirang
Pang-aliw ko habang-buhay!

RELIGIOUS ART IN PAETE

Paete is more than just a tourist destination - it is a place of pilgrimage. The craft that placed Paete on the world map is woodcarving, specifically, carvings of "pu-on," images of the saints. To view these pu-ons enshrined in our church of St. James the Apostle is in itself a rich spiritual experience popular among German and Spanish travelers.

Not only are these images venerated in Paete itself, these works of art are also known to have traveled long distances of time and space. As New Zealand author Patricia Brooks wrote in her book, WITHOUT REGRETS (Claretian Publications, Quezon City, RP, 1999):

The word 'paete' means 'chisel' in the local Tagalog language; with the encouragement of the barefoot Franciscan friars, the Little Brothers of St. Francis of Assisi, the Filipino artists of Paete excelled in their craft, exporting carvings and furniture to churches and palaces. St. Peter's Basilica, in Rome, has a life-sized crucifix carved at Paete and Mission Dolores in San Francisco has an ornate pulpit...

Another ornate pulpit made in Paete is in the fabled church of San Cayetano in the silver-mining town of Guanajuato, Mexico. There is also a small bas relief of the Holy Family on exhibit at the museum of St. Joseph's Shrine in Santa Cruz, California. I have seen both these works of Paetenian carvers, and felt proud that even with centuries between them, they came from the same place and sprung out of the same tradition.

CELEBRATING PAETE

Expectedly, some celebrations are grander than others. Following are the principal religious celebrations in Paete:

CHRISTMAS - Aside from the traditional Misa Aguinaldo (a choral novena of Masses celebrated for nine days starting December 17), Paetenians celebrate a Christmas midnight Mass that features a giant star lantern ("parol") that appears from the vicinity of the choir loft and travels toward the altar at the sound of the "Gloria".

The Christmas Day Masses themselves end with the adoration of the Santo Nino, the Holy Child. The image of the Baby Jesus in the Belen (creche) in Paete may be "wrapped in swaddling bands," yes, but those bands are encrusted in gold as befits the baby king. After each Mass, the congregation rushes up to the altar rails to kiss the image's arms and legs.

THE "SALIBANDA"

Salibanda marks the end of the long Christmas season, to celebrate Christ's infancy and growth into manhood, and His baptism. It is also a festival of Paete's fishermen. Held in early January, it features the statue of a standing Holy Child patterned after the celebrated "Santo Niño de Cebu." (The original Santo Niño de Cebu was a gift in 1521 from the mad Queen Juana of Spain, Reina Juana la Loca, grandmother of King Philip II, after whom the Philippines was named).

While Santo Niño celebrations are held everywhere else in the Philippines, Paete Salibanda is unique in that it starts as a fluvial parade on the lake, then continues on as a rowdy procession-dance snaking up and down the narrow streets while participants and spectators alike splash water on one another.

Legend has it that once, an image of the Santo Nino was found floating about in Laguna de Bay. Paete fishermen tried to lift it out of the water, but it was so heavy that the group of men could not load it into their bangka. Then they began to chant and to rock the boat rhythmically. Miraculously, the image became light. It was brought to shore and carried in a procession all over town. To this day, Salibanda gathers a huge crowd of revelers to Paete.

MAHAL NA ARAW

The grandest of Paete festivities, Holy Week processions feature what could be the largest collection of the most exquisite images depicting the Passion of Christ. In my time, little children dressed up as angels hovered around the image of Our Mother of Sorrows, Madriñan's Mater Dolorosa. As regards Holy Week celebrations 100 years ago, historian Dr. Eugenio Quesada had this to say:

American and German tourists came to Paete to observe the celebrations. In Paete church during Holy Thursday, 23 groups of these statues of saints depicting the Passion of Christ were displayed, surpassing by sheer number any other collection of Holy Week statuary among parishes in the Philippines, perhaps in the whole world. After the procession in the evening, the church remained open and the story of the Passion of Christ was chanted. People went to church and prayed an hour or so each during the whole night. The whole town was really in mourning, in deep sorrow.

The next day, Good Friday, people continued in their quiet, solemn way. When I was a boy, I saw how the "Capitan" (municipal captain) imposed discipline in an absolutely noiseless way by carrying a whip hidden inside his coat, and flogging any boy who made any noise either inside or outside the church.

In late afternoon, the Good Friday procession would start. This time, the number of statues was less because those figures depicting the Passion of Christ were withdrawn. But the images of saints were retained and dressed in black - as in a funeral procession. (The central figure of the Good Friday procession is the "Señor", the image of the dead Christ laid out in a heavy ornate glass casket surrounded by weeping cherubs who hold in their chubby little hands censers, nails, the crown of thorns, and other instruments of His death. The casket is carried on the shoulders by an army of male penitents marching in unison.)

Finally, there was one part of the Holy Week celebrations which children both enjoyed and feared. This was the custom of having some people dress up as Jewish authorities and Roman soldiers wearing mustachioed masks and plummed helmets, and carrying spears. (Elsewhere in the Philippines, this custom is called "Moriones.") The small children very often got scared of them but the bigger ones got lots of fun. The "Hudiyos" were the only people allowed to jump around and make noises during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In later years, this practice was abandoned because it was becoming more of a nuisance than a religious vow.

Semana Santa celebrations in Paete always end up with a bang. On "Sabado de Gloria," morning of Holy Saturday, hordes of young people climb up the mountain for a pilgrimage to "Maykurus", site of the three crosses on the hilltop, and to picnic on sweet young coconuts. In the evening, people dress up to the nines and dance the night away. This practice has been criticized by the more pious residents of the town, arguing that the Lord was still dead and therefore improper to celebrate. But holidays being what they are - a gathering of long lost friends and relatives coming home to Paete - people feel the need to entertain and be entertained. Reconciliation is usually reached on Easter Sunday when the entire town turns out for the early morning Church services.

THE "SANTAKRUSAN"

Santakrusan is a month-long combination celebration of the veneration of the Holy Cross and harvest festival. Held in May when school is out and the rice harvest is just in, Santakrusan is popular with children because there is a party to go to almost every afternoon after playing in the sun. Fourteen empty crosses representing the 14 stations are taken in by various homes all over town every day of the month. In each of these houses, the people chant the story of St. Helena and the Crusaders' search for the True Cross. It's a long story, but after the search is over, the children get to respond in song at the veneration:

Krus na mahal,
Krus na mapalad,
Darakilang armas,
Bandera ni Hesus
Pagsakop sa lahat!

(Holy Cross, blessed Cross, Noble weapon, Jesus' standard in saving mankind!)

When the chanting is done, everybody gets to eat. When I was a child, the most popular Santakrusan fare were "kalamay at arros caldo", "tutong", "halu-halo" and "puto at swatanghon."

Unlike other celebrations, Santakrusan's climax was at the start of the month - on the feast of Santa Elena (St Helena), May 3. In my time, the feast of Santa Elena was held on the first Sunday of May, when a young woman, dressed as the Queen St. Helena visited in a procession the 14 stations of the cross set up in decorated booths all over town. With her small son, the catechumen Emperor Constantine by her side, Queen Helena was escorted by a large retinue of small boys carrying spears, acting the role of crusaders. Each station was also decorated with various fruits, vegetables, rice crackers and candies hanging overhead. After the queen's visit, the children scrambled for their share of the bounty.