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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, November 25, 2002

Pasko! pays tribute to Filipino fiestas

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

You sure know Christmas is coming when you hear folks singing "Inton Aldan Ti Paskua."

Members of the Aklan Cultural Society dance during the Honolulu Academy of Arts' annual Pasko! The Filipino holiday celebration yesterday featured games, crafts and entertainment on the Academy grounds.

Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"That's what those words mean, almost literally, Christmas is coming soon," Benjamin Mendoza Jr. of Waipahu said yesterday after singing it at the annual Pasko! festival at the Hono-lulu Academy of Arts.

Even non-Ilocano speakers at the event could recognize the tune, "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

"We really would like to be 'home' for Christmas," Manila-born Pepi Nieva said, "because the Philippines is supposed to have the longest Christmas celebration in the world."

It begins with the Misa de Gallo (masses of the rooster) at dawn Dec. 16, through Noche Buena with its midnight "media noche" family feast, to Three Kings' Day Jan. 6, where traditionally a second Christmas gift was given.

"Filipinos love to celebrate," said Nieva, a member of the Filipino Association of University Women which sponsored this year's Pasko party as a tribute to all Filipino fiestas.

Janos Kovacs of Munich, one of the hundreds who attended the party, said the tribute to festivals was a "super" display of the kind of fiestas Filipinos celebrate during 2 1/2 months each year.

Aklan dancers with blackened faces and colorful headgear pranced about the Academy courtyard yesterday in a preview of another upcoming celebration, Ati-Atihan, which dates to the 13th century.

Malay immigrants were so grateful for the welcome they got from the local dark-skinned Ati people that they smeared themselves with charcoal to honor the pygmies who still occupy the mountains of Panay.

"Ati-Atihan means, 'make like the pygmies, the Ati,' " said Johnny Dionisio, one of the organizers of Hawai'i's Aklan Cultural Society Ati-Atihan dancers.

The old pre-Christian Ati-Atihan today is still a wild seven-day Mardi Gras-style party in late January, but like many pagan rites it was Christianized by the Spanish conquistadors and priests and now includes masses and processions for the Santo Niño or holy child.

"The Spaniards just let the people keep doing it but made it a Christian festival," Dionisio said.

The guests yesterday chomped on ethnic dishes or lined up to get a shave-ice concoction of evaporated milk, assorted fruits and sugar called "halo halo," which means "mix mix."

"It tasted kind of bland until they told us we have to 'halo' it ourselves," said writer Susan Porjes of Waikiki.

Her 6-year-old daughter Wendy scampered up with a Christmas card she'd just made at a festival craft table. It included Wendy's green tree with a yellow star, and the words, "Maligayang Pasko," which means Merry Christmas.

"We go to all the cultural festivals," husband Michael Porjes said. "It keeps us from getting island fever, and we learn a lot."

"It works both ways," Susan Porjes said. "This week we're having some Filipino friends over for their first American Thanksgiving dinner."

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.