Flores de Mayo

May in the Philippines is a month of fiestas honoring patron saints with feasts and merriment, that invariably include religious processions, beauty pageants, band music, entertainment, and the ubiquitous lechon. It is also the month in largely Catholic Philippines that venerates the Virgin Mary.

When the Vatican proclaimed the dogma of Immaculate Conception in 1854, the devotion to Mary known as Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May) blossomed some years later in the province of Bulacan and spread like wildfire in the southern Luzon provinces of Laguna, Batangas, and Pampanga. This devotion took the form of rituals that are generally celebrated inside the Church. One such customary ritual is the offering of flowers to Mary every afternoon during the entire month of May. The rosary is recited and hymnals are sung during the ritual.

Believed to have started in 1865, the Flores de Mayo has several variations. In southern Luzon, it is called Alay kay Maria (offering to Mary), better known today as, simply, Alay or Flores. During the Alay, hymns are sung by the offerers of the garlands and carriers of bouquets, followed in turn by the entire community singing a forty-five stanza dalit, with a refrain intervening between stanzas. Both the stanzas and the refrain consist of four eight-syllable lines. Music to these hymns is composed by local musicians.

If memory serves me well, a popular song in Manila of the mid-50s, "Flowers in May" was sung by Sylvia La Torre, a product of University of Santo Tomas Conservatory of Music and perhaps the greatest soprano the Philippines ever had. Who can forget her rendition of immortal classics like "Nasaan ka Irog", or, "Waray-Waray"?

Over the years, this flower festival has lost its true fragrance, if not its spirit. In Spanish times, daughters of the wealthy were chosen by the parish cura to serve as hermanas. As sponsors, they were responsible for planning the festival and for decorating Mary’s caroza and the church in preparation for the nine-day novena that precedes the big procession. They were also responsible for shouldering the various expenses associated with the festival.

The flower offerings begin around five each afternoon, but not until after the prayer lady, usually an older woman, finishes reciting the rosary and reading the pagninilay, a meditation on the various dogmas of the Catholic faith. Prayers over, two lines are formed before Mary’s image. A Koro, situated in the choir loft, screams out the verses of the set hymn and is answered by devotees down below. On and on the sopranos and the altos exchange verses, all the while devotees stuck flowers into vases, dump them on the altar, or hang them onto Mary’s folded hands.

On the eve of the grand finale of the festival, the last Sunday in May, the Mary’s caroza is fetched from the hermana’s house and escorted to the Church by devotees dancing to the band’s Paru-parung Bukid. The big procession begins Sunday night, and is really a grandiose affair. In socially-conscious Philippines, this is called the palabas, the height of ostentation. Sagalas, handpicked for their wealth and beauty by the hermanas are dressed to kill, so to speak. After all, it is the hermanas reputation as sponsor of the festival that is at stake. Elegantly dressed and coiffed, these ladies adorn the procession. Not to be outdone however, the hermanas themselves come last, dressed in ternos to end all ternos, fanning themselves and smiling piously at every stop at the whole admiring, gawking town. The chariot-shaped caroza bearing Mary under a neoclassic arch called, kubol, is bedecked with cascading flowers and illuminated by a spotlight.

With the passing of time, daughters of less affluent families have taken over from the rich who have gone to the cities the responsibility for the town’s celebration of the flower festival. While the grandiosity of preparation and presentation is still obvious, the true fragrance of the festival has given way to bad taste. It is in the urban areas where the Flores de Mayo, combined with the Santakrusan, flourishes to this day.

John Reyes
Salaza, Palauig, Zambales
ZambalesForum (ZF) owner-moderator

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