Celebrating Language Month

Buwan ng Wika or “Language Month” is annually celebrated in every school in the Philippines. It is celebrated in the month of August as an encouragement to preserve the native Filipino language and culture and to remind Filipinos of where we came from and to enrich in us that language is more than just a means of communication, it is also a vehicle for culture, history, and identity. . It is celebrated in August to commemorate the birthday of Manuel L. Quezon, who was an instrumental in campaigning for the national language proclamation

It is already September! Yet it is not too late to celebrate Buwan ng Wika. Our school celebrated it late because of a typhoon which caused our city to suspend classes for one (1) whole week. I am kinda disappointed that I have spent that week unproductively, and now, I am suffering the consequences of my own laziness.

Moving on to the day of the celebration, it was kick-started by a “Misa ng Bayan”, or a mass. I am not catholic and it is my first time attending a catholic mass so their program on the mass was kind of shocking for me. Each section prepared an offering for the mass and our section was assigned to offer rice. There was also a communion to which I didn’t join since I am not catholic. After the mass the segment “HINAMPANG” or “FILIPINO GAMES” started.

Of course, since it is a school activity and I am a student journalist, I was again assigned to write a news lead for a certain activity which is “Luksong Baka” or “Jump over the Cow”. It is a game where there is a “Baka player” or “Cow player” and the players should jump over him/her without falling over the “Baka player”, and once the first set of players has already jumped over the “Baka player”, the “Baka player” will slowly rise up. There are a lot of Filipino games that were played during the event such as “Patintero”, “Chinese Garter”, “Tumba patis”, and etc. Wish I could describe this to you one by one.

After the hinampang, we decided to eat lunch at the food court inside the campus since it will be a hassle to go out wearing our Filipinianas. There were so many students inside the campus, maybe because they also find it a hassle to go out to the campus just to eat lunch, given that we only have 1 hour and 30 minutes before the afternoon segment will begin.

Right after our lunch, we were already instructed to go back inside the coliseum since the next activities will be held there. My throat definitely hurt from shouting for my team. There are Vocal Solo and Vocal duet as well as “Binalaybay” which is the same as “Spoken Word Poetry” but in Hiligaynon. The last competition, which everyone is so excited about, is the “Sayawit” short for “Sayaw at Awit” which is basically translated to “Dance and Song”.

Celebrating our culture and tradition is really great, it serve as a reminder of how brave our ancestors are that even if we were colonized by nations, we were still able to keep our identity, that alone is worth celebrating for.

~all photos attached herewith are mine~