Laguna is one of the nearest provinces in Manila. It is the province where our national hero was born and raised in. And, there are a lot of hot springs in Laguna. For the most part, these are the few things that I know about the province.
To start the whole field trip, we first went to Colegio San Juan De Letran in Calamba to hear Ms. Rica Palis talk about the popular culture and folk culture of Laguna. She shared that Laguna is filled of culture and arts, but the people’s connection to it is declining. She shared that there are many factors that contribute; a few of them are globalization, political interference, and economic demands. First, globalization is slowly creeping in and influencing the population to adhere to different points of view and styles. Western has become more hip, while Laguna’s culture is turning into old news. The lack of government support has also lessened cultures stability. The funds for culture and arts have been shifted to fiesta’s that are too extravagant and has lost the true meaning of the town. Economic demands are shown by the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) wherein they stress that each town have one commodity different from the other town in the country. These factors continue to loosen the connection of the people to their culture.
I actually admire Ms Palis for recognizing these problems, and doing her best to stop its continuation at the grassroots level.
The other lecture we had on our trip was by Dr. Levita Duhaylungsod on the politics of festivals. According to her, the government imposed that each town would have one fiesta celebrating either their patron or promoting the commodity they are really good at. According to her, this does not contribute to enriching the culture and arts of the town, but promotes economic gains are more of a reason to celebrate than giving thanks. Her example was the three towns we visited: Liliw Lusiana, and Lucban. The town of Liliw, which is known for slippers or tsinelas created a festival celebrating and promoting their identifying commodity. Lucban, a town rich in commodities such as longanisa and agricultural products, have been celebrating San Isidro for centuries, but due to the demand of the government they changed the name to Pahiyas. While in Luisianna, a town that has neither a commodity to celebrate or a fiesta to promote, created its own fiesta to adhere to the wishes of the government. They saw that Pandan was a good commodity, so they created the Pandan Festival to celebrate it. Looking at the three examples, the town of Luisiana was the town most affected, because it had no culture of ever producing Pandan products and having a Pandan festival. Ms. Duhaylungsod stresses that economic gains are the producers of culture in our society today. It is sad that the demands of the people matter more than hundreds of years of tradition.
After visiting the towns and understanding the lectures of Ms. Palis and Dr. Duhaylungsod, I was depressed at how our culture is changing not for the better. By basing our culture on the economy, we will be producing children that believes based on money. I believe that there must be reform and more people like our two lecturers who sees these problems.
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