Filipinos are easily among the most rabid fanatics when it comes to paying homage to the dead. They virtually take two days off a year to observe All Saints Day and All Souls Day for that purpose. And yet, those who take part in the observance cannot help but notice that the event has lost some if not most of its spirit. The remembrance of the dead is slowly losing its essence like other events that are but a shell of the real thing. Sure, many people still descend on cemeteries and memorial parks on these dates like locusts. Sure, the event still poses a nightmare to police authorities tasked to secure the burial grounds from violence and danger. And yes, most if not all Roman Catholics continue to offer masses for their departed loved ones. The candles that lit nearly every tomb shows that many people remember their dead.
But then, is that all there is to it?
Indeed, the fleeting recollections seem to look more and more like an item on a checklist where people go through them hurriedly. As soon as the normal activities are complied with, the feeling is more of a relief than a deeper sense that comes with honoring the dead. Time was when people described the offspring as a “chip off the old block”. This was the cliché to describe a son who is like his father. The expression was coined in reference to the block so the chip is assumed to have the same characteristics as the block. It is no longer safe to assume that today. Many children grow up with very little resemblance to their parents. Except for those who physical features give them away, many not only drift farther away from the road taken by their parents but some actually despise and scorn them.
This is not to say that every child should grow up to be a replica of his parents. And yet, it is a sad commentary to our times when children no longer hold sacred the memories of their parents much more the ideals that lived and stood for. Going to the cemeteries and going through the rituals to remember the dead are admirable. But they fly in the face when the virtues that the departed desperately sought to imbibe in their lifetime are now buried lifeless beside them. Virtues are supposed to be timeless, and yet we hear less and less about them nowadays. If we wonder why this is happening, we need only to see how lowly we treat the past in our haste to race to the future. If forgetfulness were an ailment, we have an epidemic in our midst.
|
