Pabasa - A Lenten Ritual in the Philippines

One happy memory of my childhood is the annual Pabasa ng Pasyon. Pabasa, is an oral remembrance/recitation/singing of the passion of Christ and is one of the most unique and valued ways the Filipinos observe Lent. It usually takes place during the Semana Santa (Holy Week). Here in Toronto, Canada, a Pabasa is held by the Filipino Chaplaincy/Mission. The chaplaincy which used to be housed at the Blessed John XXIII church was later transferred to the Our Lady of Assumption Church in Bathurst.

In our extended family, once you learned how to read you immediately became a member of the singing group.

Our Pabasa was hosted by our maternal Grand Aunt, who was fondly called Lola Ebya (Eusebia). It was held for many years in her grandiose house in Santa Ana, in a section of the house resembling a small chapel. It housed life-sized statues and icons of several saints and patrons which included a Santa Veronica, which participated in the yearly processions of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and I believe, the Easter dawn-Salubong.

My Lola’s pabasa was always held on a Holy Monday. It would start in the early evening or mid-afternoon and finish the following day at three in the afternoon. So it meant continuous singing of verses describing the life, suffering and death of Christ. This continuous singing also meant non-stop eating. The singers and participants had to be fed; if not, like the canaries, their voices would weaken.

My Lola’s pabasa was usually attended by relatives, friends and members of the church which we attended. I distinctly remember one singer, an old woman named Aling Gundina, whose voice was opera-sounding and we, kids looked forward to imitating her after the pabasa had ended.

The food for these pabasas consisted of fiesta-like dishes, but what I loved most was the lumpiang sariwa (fresh vegetable roll) with lots of minced garlic and the suman sa lihiya, a native dessert of sweet glutinous rice wrapped in green banana leaves; such food and kakanins prepared out of the large kusina by old ladies who would not let you in.

My mother and two aunts had fairly good pabasa voices. And one uncle in-law could wow the crowd with his Cenon Lagman voice. But we, young ones would be sitting at the back of the room, boldly singing, only as soon as the crowd had thinned, usually in those hours after lunch and early hours of Holy Tuesday.

Back then, the use of microphones and loud speakers was unknown. But with participants honed over the years in the pabasa-style singing, the need for these equipment did not exist. It was usual to have various mini-sections in the big singing group, who would compete in the singing; some would intentionally prolong singing some words and phrases, and some would abruptly switch to another tono (tune) to catch the attention of the large crowd or to simply awaken those who were ready to fall asleep.

At home, my mother would start her own basa ng pasyon as soon as Cuaresma (Lent) commenced on Ash Wednesday, and we all had to participate at various days and times, to enable the family to finish the whole book, by Good Friday.

Today, I am quite sure that my mother is softly singing the Pasyon in the privacy of her room in the Philippines. She no longer goes to the official basahan ng pasyon as her eyesight is no longer as sharp as before, and alas, some apos (grandchildren) have lost touch with a beautiful Philippine Christian tradition.