May as the month for Heritage

“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer.” — William Shakespeare

Prior to the declaration of the month of May as National Heritage Month (Presidential Proclamation No. 439), I have always looked forward to May, a month laden with flowers, Marian feast days, and numerous fiestas. Before the change in the Philippine academic calendar, it was also the month that signifies summer break for every Filipino student, thus was a perfect time to conduct catechism and fun activities for children. My husband recalls having spent a couple of years or more in the island of Bohol as a teenager. Every afternoon in Cortes, Bohol, the traditional “Flores” is performed wherein every girl, dressed in splendid white, would bring the best available flowers in town to the town Church to offer the flowers before the image of the Blessed Mother. No boy, who is in his right senses, would miss that occasion to stay by the town plaza and admire the silent procession of the girls, all of the boys mesmerized by the wonderful flowers and the pretty girls dressed in white.

The month of May is also special for the gastronomic desires as my husband describes how he and his siblings would go town-hopping in pursuit of bountiful feasts, since practically each day of the month of May in Bohol is a celebration of some town’s patron saint.

Bohol’s capital city of Tagbilaran kicks the whole month off as it celebrates the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1. During each of the town fiestas, expect to see the church laden with flowers, while red and yellow buntings line the streets surrounding the church.

My husband also recounts, with gusto, how visits to town fiestas in Bohol in the month of May was almost like having a free meal each day. I, myself, recall experiencing this manner of welcome in Lucban, Quezon during one Pahiyas festival; one need not know anyone in the place to be invited.

Truly there is reason to celebrate in the month of May, to devote leisure time for worship during the feast day of a patron saint. It is a day of gratitude for numerous graces God has granted to members of the community. It is also an occasion for social cohesion, as everyone in the community works on an event important to all, and as the event welcomes both locals and “dayos ” to their town and to their homes.

I have also been convening for the last five years The Faura Project’s Flores de Mayo Festival and Conference, an event that seeks to provide an academic platform for the celebration of the Flores de Mayo, as an advocacy for endemic and native flowers, as well as the cultural heritage that has resulted as an offshoot of this. An organization that sprouted from this festival is the Philippine Botanical Art Society, founded by Ms. Bing Famoso; the organization is composed of artists whose advocacy is to promote local flowers through painting.

It was also in the month of May that the Faura Project conceived its “Empowered Women, Empowered Ermita” program, with its goal of integrating floral and cultural heritage in skills training for the underserved women of Ermita.

“And a bird overhead sang Follow,
And a bird to the right sang Here;
And the arch of the leaves was hollow,
And the meaning of May was clear.”
― Algernon Charles Swinburne