Thursday, January 03, 2008 Minaleños take center stage in 'Aguman Sanduk' By Raymond C. Garcia
MINALIN -- While the country took a nap in the afternoon of New Year's Day to catch up on sleep lost from the previous night's revelries, Minaleños slipped into dresses, put on wigs and high heels, and had a ball on the streets.
They are, of course, celebrating their secret, exclusive tradition called "Aguman Sanduk" -- literally, the Fellowship of the Ladle.
Mayor Edgardo Flores and Vice Mayor Edgardo Yambao, together with the councilors, led thousands of local folk during the celebration.
The tradition started in 1934 when a group of Minalin men, who were drinking beer in front of the old municipal hall, thought of a way to end the holiday season with a bang.
They cooked lelut manuk, which is similar to arrozcaldo, then dared each other to do the ultimate no-no among Kapampangan men: wear a dress and parade on the street.
Someone put a pillow under his shirt and feigned pregnancy. Another played a midwife and another anxious husband. They mounted a gareta (carabao-drawn wooden carriage) and the show was on.
When it was over in the evening, they did what Kapampangans of yore did best: perform crissotan (verbal jousts wherein poets compose witty verses on the spot).
During their celebration last January 1, hundred of boys and men unabashedly turned into transvestites on this first day of the New Year, unafraid of the superstition that what you do on New Year's Day will be repeated throughout the year.
There were 10-year-olds wearing their sisters' school uniforms, teens with clutch bags tucked under their armpits and shorts peeking below their micro-minis, and old farmers and fishermen with sunburned skin and toothless grins, their atrocious blond wigs covering their bald heads.
Surprisingly, there were no jeers from the crowd, considering the Filipinos' penchant for ridiculing transvestites.
More surprisingly, there were no gays among the cross-dressers. The womenfolk, instead of freaking out, cheer their sons, husbands, fathers and grandfathers as their freakish procession passes by.
The fact that this tradition has endured for almost 70 years now, surviving World War II and lahar rampage, has legitimized it as a genuine cultural heritage.
They said it is truly unique and original Kapampangan festival that deserves to be popularized and duplicated on a grander scale, since it "resonates culturally" among Kapampangans.
"It makes fun of Kapampangan machismo and Kapampangan pulchritude, two biases enshrined on the altar of Kapampangan values," they said.
Local folk said Aguman Sanduk is also a protest against, and liberation from, gender discrimination and repression.
