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“Metal. It has to be metal. She was very firm about that,” insisted my cousin at the funeral parlour. We were shopping for a casket for my unmarried aunt who had just died. Of course it had to be metal—and therefore expensive. Foremost in our minds was the cautionary tale of a family friend, a dentist and well-off, who had gotten a plain wooden coffin for her father when he died. Her father had been a lawyer and well-known in the community. The community never forgave the dentist for the disrespect she showed her father in death. Not wood for my aunt. Metal with all the trimmings and of course fresh, not artificial flowers.

How we say goodbye to the dead is a matter of pride and family honour in the Philippines. The dentist may have thought she was just being practical, but practicality is not a highly regarded virtue in our culture, particularly when it comes to certain things. Tradition, celebration, and excess are more descriptive of our treatment of the dead.

One reason for this is that, in the Philippines, we do not send off our dead in a hurry. We have them stay with us a while longer, in our living rooms, on grand display. The arrangements therefore have to look good, very good.

Sweeping in the house while the dead lie in state is not allowed, as it connotes an eagerness to rid the household of the memory of the deceased.

wreatth

photo provided. used with permission.

When someone dies, even the humblest of homes are transformed into showcases, with the coffin gleaming in the center, surrounded by rows of wreaths and flower stands and lit by several dozen lights on tall candelabras. Whirring standing electric fans complete the picture because of the year-long hot weather in the Philippines.

You can tell the status of the dead from the names that appear on the displayed wreaths. The more wreaths and officials’ names in evidence, we believe, the more important the dead. A congressman, a senator—wreaths with their names are more impressive, although it could also be simply a case of a relative knowing someone in the senator’s office. Local city officials must have funeral budgets because their names appear on a fairly regular basis.

A week is a short time for a family member to lie in-state at home. The longer the wake, the more visitors, and thus the more honour for the dead and their family. In many cases, with the Philippines being a top exporter of human resources to the rest of the world, time is set aside for family to come home from abroad. The drama of the weeping, wailing and fainting upon arrival of the long-absent is a story for another time.

While the dead person lies in repose in the living room, a constant stream of food comes from the kitchen to feed all who come to pay their respects. No expense is spared. There is at least as much food as for a wedding or a birthday party. Indeed, the mood at a wake is so warm and light-hearted that a stranger who wanders into the bereaved house would be forgiven for thinking they had come upon a celebration.

prayers

photo provided. used with permission.

There are exceptions, of course, especially tragic and unexpected deaths. There was no light banter when Senator Benigno Aquino, for example, a critic of the Marcos government who spent many years imprisoned by the Marcos regime, lay in-state at his home. His body was still in blood-soaked clothes from being gunned down by a hired assassin as he disembarked from a plane onto the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. His mother refused to change his clothes. The death of children is always met with silence and a deep sorrow.

 

Visitors pray beside the dead at all times, but formal prayers are said after dinner for nine straight nights. On the fortieth day, when we believe the soul finally departs, we hold another feast and say the final prayers.

When not chatting, eating, or praying, visitors to the wake have the option to sit at tables set up for mahjong games that can go on all night. Mahjong, a game borrowed from the Chinese and played with numbered tiles, has kept and continues to keep generations of Filipinos entertained and, at least in my family, led to many marital disputes. Through all this the dead lie in repose, looking alive but asleep after being processed for display by the skilled makeup artists at an expensive funeral parlour—or grimacing, with peeling makeup and lipstick that missed its mark if processed by humbler morticians. The deceased are watched over by a picture of the family, framed with roses or orchids and entwined with a ribbon inscribed with love you forever or some such sentiment.

As you can imagine, wakes and funerals can be problematic when there is more than one wife or one family involved. In one case I heard about alternate viewing times being held—and family pictures switched accordingly.

More and more families are opting to have the dead lie in-state in the new and modern funeral homes that have come into existence in recent years. These places are wise to the Filipino family’s need to come together to eat and pray and have built large halls for this purpose. Increasingly, families are also opting for cremations. However, a metal coffin laid out in splendour—with lights, wreaths, and flowers—is still the way to go if you can afford it.

 

In a country with great poverty, constantly besieged by natural disasters like record-breaking floods and typhoons and inadequate health care, death is a frequent visitor to many households. But where the deceased has lived a good, long life, the atmosphere is sad, yes, but not heavy.

 

Filipinos do not rail and cry “Why?” except in the case of particularly tragic deaths. In most situations, death is accepted as ordained, the end of the deceased’s time on earth and time for union with God. Of that, for most Filipinos, there is absolutely no doubt. And so we are, for the most part, accepting and yes, we pray.

Most of my family lived into their 80s and 90s. My grandmother, my mother ’s mother, died at 102. So when we gathered to mourn them there was a sadness, but also an acceptance, a letting go. We were comforted too by the familiarity of a ritual that had been held for generations: prayer, choosing the right clothes for burial, calling other family members, and yes, choosing a beautiful metal coffin. Not wood.