Just like shabu the poor man's cocaine, it's equivalent in fiesta? What else if not the poor man's fiesta. With May time all over the place, what is there to expect but fiestas, lots of it. In Bohol, May is associated with fiesta here, there and everywhere. This explains why we took time out to recall our experience with fiestas while we were growing up. Among the rich, fiestas may be a big spending extravaganza because it's the time of the year to show off their financial capacity to splurge signifying an ostentatious display of wealth. Scandalous it may be, but we cannot blame the moneyed among us because they are entitled to their own idea of conspicuous consumption. We recall with vivid clarity how in our growing up years did we celebrate fiestas in honour of our two patron saints. In June we marked the feast of our barrio saint, Saint Anthony of Padua. The Immaculate Conception is our town patroness whom we celebrate every December 8.

In the current scheme of things, never was there a time that we hide our social status during our formative years until our maturity age. We remember how our poor parents coped with as soon as fiesta of either patron saint was ushered in. We recall too that even how poor we were then, the old folks still managed to celebrate the occasion in their own small way. Poor then? Does it mean that we have improved our lot all through the years? There may be a big difference as our siblings found their own places in the sun like earning their keeps by finding work. That more or less improved our lot, a far cry from what it used to be. But that's another story.

For example while we wallowed in poverty because farm productivity was seasonal, we have to contend to eating root crops. These days if a family is sustaining in root crops this family belongs to the poorest among the poor. There's no argument that it was our status in the social stratum then. As one belonging to the poor segment, our equivalent this time is that of a family belonging below the poverty line. Back to how we observed our fiestas then. It was already a grand celebration according to our poor standard if we have meat during fiestas. The most we can afford was to have pork meat at least three kilos. In most cases, an enterprising neighbor slaughtered a big hog and have it sold to houses which was shared among the families in the neighborhood. Nangambit lang was the term used to a poor family who wanted to have something in the table during fiesta.

In our case, with limited meat, we have no option but be contented with only three kinds of viands. With no culinary background, no way that this young lad then knew what were the two kinds of viands were concocted out of a limited raw material. Poor we may be, we did have our main course, the humba bisaya, as our version of piece de resistance, the lechon of today. In rare cases, we sometimes had lechon but only by accident. If we had lechon, it became the greatest story ever told in the neighbourhood but if only the people around knew that the roasted piglet was a victim of high fever that's why it has to be saved or else it would just die a natural death. The expression then to those who knew the real score was this “if you know pa lamang, you'll never gayud”. (if only you know the real truth, you'll never dare (to eat the roasted piglet). Indeed, it's a pity to be poor and how it was to experience a poor man's fiesta. But that's the reality of life. At least with a meager preparation befitting a poor man's budget, the celebration is not how big one can afford to splurge in terms of expenses, but it was all about paying homage to the patron saint.