New Year is
mainly a matter of noise. The first firecrackers go off as early
as October. Then, the noise level goes up during all of November
and December, and on December 31, from early in the morning until
midnight of the New Year's Eve, firecrackers explode without interruption.
And all this
in spite of..., one wouldn't believe it, ...the fact that the
manufacture and sale of fireworks is illegal in The Country .
They were outlawed in 1966 after a fire which started in a fireworks
factory killed 26 in Meycauayan, a town just north of Manila.
It wasn't however, the only or the last such incident. Only on
December 30, 1988, a cracker factory exploded in the town of Bocaue,
just next to Meycauayan, killing 12 and wounding 23. It was an
explosion just like a big bomb, leveling five houses and blowing
the roofs off and razing several walls of ten more houses.
Meycauayan
and some adjacent municipalities in Bulacan province have always
been the center of production for fireworks in the archipelago,
and they remained so after the ban, with no decrease in production
but continuing as an illegal operation. Some have claimed that
making firecrackers illegal has just raised prices and lowered
safety standards.
If compared
to Europe and North America, firecrackers in the Philippines are
of an amazing strength - real little hand grenades. As a matter
of fact there are thousands injured every New Year's season from
accidentally exploded firecrackers. About a hundred amputated
fingers are reported for Metro Manila alone on New Year's eve
annually. Surgeons who work overtime that night have to resort
to amputation in many cases just because there are so many other
patients with finger injuries waiting to be treated; they just
do not have the time to try to save the finger of an individual
that could be saved any other day of the year.
There are
many dangerous firecracker creations around in the Philippines.
The most notorious, however, seems to be a small bomb called 'Super
Grandfather', or in Tagalog 'Super Lolo', or in Taglish 'Thunder
Lolo'. If it explodes within two meters of a person, especially
in a closed space, it will cause temporary deafness with its blast.
Either for
locals or foreigners, it is certainly not advisable to stroll
through the streets on New Year's eve. It's not just because excited
youths often throw firecrackers at people to frighten them. Worse
still, police, security guards, and military have the habit of
randomly discharging firearms this night. According to a report
of Agence France Press, published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer
December 31, 1988, three people were killed by stray bullets on
New Year's eve one year earlier. Furthermore, a significant number
of those treated in Metro Manila hospitals the previous year were
injured by stray bullets, mostly from M-16's. As the M-16 is the
standard firearm of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the incidents
indicate, according to Agence France Press, that mostly military
men fire their guns during the celebration.
Almost as
unpleasant as the use of firecrackers is the New Year's Eve habit
of burning tires, often in the middle of the street. The burning
tires produce a thick black smoke and on January 1, a fine film
of soot covers the whole metropolis.
Somewhere
in the last 10 days of January and the first 10 days of February,
the Chinese and Chinese-Filipinos celebrate Chinese New Year.
The Chinese year is determined by a lunar calendar so the date
is not fixed in the Gregorian calendar. Chinese New Year is largely
a family affair to which relatives and friends (even if they are
not Chinese) are invited. At Chinese community halls and temples,
dragon dances, open-air Chinese operas and plays are performed.
Typically, firecrackers are exploded during the whole night as
their noise is supposed to drive away evil spirits.