Bring Out The Pumpkins!

I don’t know exactly when Filipino kids started celebrating ‘trick or treat’. All I know is that it is recent.

During my time, this time of the year meant family reunions at the cemetery with lots of food, a giant cooler, a tent and restless kids collecting melted candles which would later be converted into a giant ball, the bigger the bida better!

Tradition states that you and your cousins would watch the Halloween episode of Magandang Gabi Bayan and later on sleep in one bed hugging the crucifix for the fear that the aswang or mananaggal or kapre would skulk at midnight.

But with the recent turn of events, I doubt that the aswang or manananggal or kapre would still live long. Kids nowadays only recognize zombies and Frankenstein and of course the vampires! 

Soon, local horror story would be a thing of the past. Heck, who among the new generation knows what horror story the legendary Balete Drive stands for? or the tale of the headless priest?

In the next five years kids won’t even know the power possessed by that clove of garlic idly sitting at the kitchen drawer and how it is supposed to be the kryptonite of all known entities of the dark!

Today, vampires aren’t supposed to be scary. They are supposed to be sexy and perfect and the benchmark for an enduring love story. This is the part where I puke.

Zombies aren’t supposed to fright you too! All you need are a bunch of sunflowers and you should be good! Your brains included. 

Just like our concept of Christmas, our ‘Araw ng Patay’ is slowly evolving into a pale sottocat copycat of the western tradition.

There’s nothing wrong with it except that if kids connect Christmas with Santa and his raindeers and Halooween with Trick or Treat then we might as well ask God for snow! Remind me again that we are located at the tropics near the equator?

And since its almost every Filipino’s dream to experience snow, I think its high time for PAGASA to stop calling it typhoons and instead practice tagging it as hurricanes!

The trick or treat tradition encourages people to dress up in costumes and be everything they want to be for a night. Sounds like a liberating exercise to me!

Question is, if Filipino politicians dress up like clowns or thieves can we still call it dressing up?

Someone bring those giant pumpkins out!