ALORAN, a perspective HUGOS

Is the culmination of a week-long observance of Lent. Like Sambat, this too is celebrated this way only by IFI and RC. On the roadside close to the church, a platform is erected. Four logs of good-size diameter, some twenty feet long, erected slightly leaning towards the center. A canopy is built over the flooring, big enough for say eight persons taking turn pulling six young girls hanging on a rope, up and down. At the center of the flooring is a cutting, square, enough for two young girls tied on to a rope to be pulled up and down during the entire ceremony. On each corner is a small cutting so another young girl also hanging from a rope can be pulled up and down from the platform (this is with the IFI). At the RC, a small platform is built on each corner so another young girl can stand and or kneel. In both churches, the two girls hanging from the center are the 'main angels' and those from each corner are the 'angels'. The ceremony starts as soon as the long procession stops, when the images of both the Virgin Mary and the resurrected Jesus Christ are directly below the platform. All the angels will then sing in the solemn ceremony accompanied by the band, hymns that you only hear at Hugos. Hugos takes place around four in the morning, hours before sunrise, on the Sunday Jesus Christ resurrected. For the not very-early-morning persons, they get the chance to hear the same hymns, without the solemn ceremony though, during the sana-sana, evening of Saturday. That Sunday morning after breakfast, the angels and the musikeros, parents and fans go around town carolling, it is the Pasko sa Pagkabanhaw. This too, like Sambat, IFI no longer do. The Catholics still hold Hugos. Though the significance is never diminished, the fanfare is no longer the same, in my observation. I learned from my mother later in life that in her time as a young girl, the Angels were boys. In one of these Hugos, Pilo Ocdol was one of the two main-angels. The crowd noticed that his singing was erratic at best. It was found out that his balls were squeezed between him and the rope he was tied to. From then on, boys were replaced by girls. Visit us here: Sadly, this is gone too.