On the sidelines in Kadayawan

FOR the fun of experiencing Kadayawan, my wife dragged me to join our little kids on the weekend revelry of this festival, which included the colorful Indak-Indak competition and the float parade.

So for two days, we basked in the heat, sweated and walked to get a good spot on the crowded streets to see those stuff. Because we were late for both events, we only got to see a couple of the Indak-Indak on Saturday, but we saw half of the float parade on Sunday.

So we saw dancing, floats, flowers, and horses parading on the streets. Yes, it was orderly, with street sweepers immediately cleaning up bottles and papers thrown on the road. Yes, the focus was less on celebrities because I only saw one.

But did we have fun?

My wife said the only thing she could see during the parade were the backs of police officers securing the floats and the performers. Like we couldn’t get a good view already with the throng of people.

There was a bit of overkill this security thing when one police ordered our friend not to stay near the railings because he was carrying a backpack. This, after the police inspected the pack and saw nothing that would be suspicious.

I didn’t kind of get the float parade, because I thought it was supposed to showcase indigenous themed floats. But what’s this we saw, a float with an eagle sipping coffee, a larger-than-life Duterte floats, a large-than-life motorcycle, and tarpaulins of celebrities.

It’s just the skeptic in me. But when the city says we’re celebrating the indigenous for the Kadayawan, we could have had more of the indigenous in every aspect. Like the indigenous tribes parading, or even the lumad bakwit in Haran can be given a space on the parade.

Or there could have been a festivity of indigenous food. Because after watching the parade, we joined the throng of people going to fast foods.

Events like this which are commercial in nature are really mixing up local with commercial cultures. And it gets overboard, just like one of the tribes in the parade proudly displaying they are part of the royalty of a king and queen in their tribe. Like, tribal leaders are called Matanem in Bagobo, Fulong in Blaan, and Timuay in Subanen, or Datu in most tribes, so where did this tribe get to call their leaders king and queen?

That’s the danger when we mix the mainstream to the indigenous without context. And sadly, in this celebration, we missed out the plight of the real indigenous peoples feeling hunger, getting displaced and being deprived of services from schools to health. And I feel less reason to celebrate when I hear news over the weekend that a Lumad school teacher and researcher was illegally arrested by police operatives while attending the assembly of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in Cebu City. I wonder if I and my family would ever watch next year’s Kadayawan after this.