All Tricks. No Treats.

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Unfortunately for us Filipinos, we never got to experience what American kids call Treat-or-Treating. Nowadays, malls organize Trick-or-Treats during Halloween where they invite kids to dress in costumes and the participants go together as one group to participating mall boutiques to get treats. So basically, everyone gets a treat and nobody gets tricked.Yeah, I really don't think that counts. I don't even remember anyone calling it Halloween when I was a kid. It was always All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day or Araw ng mga Patay or Todos los Santos or Undas. And the custom was to go to the cemetery and visit the graves of our dead loved ones. We even had to clean up the graves and rid it of overgrown weeds. Other people stay on the cemetery overnight and play cards or drink alcoholic beverages (or both) with their other relatives who are, of course, still alive. What the logic is behind this phenomenon, I have no idea. Maybe it is to show the beloved dead that they are still being remembered. But you can do that just by visiting the graves, right? Why stay overnight, play cards and drink beer? Maybe somehow it sends this message: Hey, dead guy, if you were alive, you'd be playing poker and drinking beer with us. But since you are not, take comfort from the fact that we remember you enough to do it on your grave once a year.

I don't know. If I were dead, I'd probably be smirking at those people and say, "I appreciate your pretense of remembrance, but I'm dead. You, however, are not. So why not worry about yourselves?" (Dead guys, I mean well by this. Please don't do the Lazarus just so that you can smack me on the head.)

Whatever. All I know is that on Halloween, the place to be in the Philippines is at the cemeteries, not on our neighbor's house. In a way, it makes sense. Because if Halloween is defined by Trick-or-Treating on your neighbors, then it's Halloween all year round in the Philippines.

To our beloved dead, please look down upon us with hope and love, not a smirk. (photo source)