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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.

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