The Filipino Effect: The Power of Celebrating Your Heritage Through Ceremony

Fun fact: Bahay kubos can be moved by their bamboo slits by neighbours. This is called bayanihan, showing Filipino ingenuity and community.

I may or may not have slumbered through my celebrant work over the winter season, with the snotty toddler season hitting my family with various ailments from daycare as well as picking up the man flu from my day job as a secondary teacher at an all boys’ school. We also had some leftover parental leave that we did not take earlier so we decided to use that leave to go to Canberra and Cairns (yes, polar opposite locations in winter). But like Mariah Carey rousing on the first day of December, this spring has been my Christmas.

I started off this season very Filipino. If you have been reading along for awhile, you would know two things about me: I am proudly Aussie born with a Filipino heritage and that concise sentences or explanations and I are not friends. So this evening, I felt compelled to write about how my week of weddings has elevated my journey in celebrating my heritage.

Firstly, one myth that I recently heard this week is that Filipinos are basically Spanish. This is absolutely incorrect and I know this from various sources that I did not keep track of, one of which was my own Ancestry results. For my partner’s first Father’s Day, I decided to get him an Ancestry kit as we spoke about ancestry in depth when our first child was born. He is a first generation Australian Salvadoreno so that would make our children biracial. Interestingly, he had told everybody he was Spanish up until he was in his early twenties when somebody gave him a shocked look. His logic? He spoke Spanish which made him Spanish.

Anyway I digress, my Ancestry results? I did not know what to expect but I definitely knew I would be Filipino and Chinese. Would Spanish come up? Maybe yes, maybe no. No – it did not. Fun (or not so fun) fact, when Filipinos were colonised by the Spaniards, it was mostly spearheaded by Friars who had religious motivations. Due to this, very few Filipinos actually have Spanish ancestry.

But why do Filipinos have Spanish last names? When the Spanish came, they gave us a big book to choose a surname as before, the Filipino naming system did not include family names. Instead, pre-colonial Filipinos were given names based on characteristics, stories or events based on the person’s birth. Let me give you the story of my first name. My dad was adamant that I was going to be a boy and they had the name Raphael lined up for me. Very nice, right? It’s traditional, there is an Archangel by that name and it fits well with my Spanish surname. Then, as you know how the story goes, I was born. Me. A female.

I was nameless for days. Raphael, although it is a wonderful traditional name, was inspired by the red Ninja Turtle. So, keeping in theme with their love of cartoons, they were seriously, and I mean seriously, considering Smurfette. And as you know how the story goes, they did not land on that but it did not stop the universe from bestowing me with the characteristics of Smurfette (I am as tall as a Smurf).

So where did Angela come from? My maternal grandmother, or Lola in Tagalog, fiercely protected me after I was born. Mum said she had stolen extra bottles to feed me, watched me be wheeled to the nursery and committed my face to memory so that I would not be switched out. My Lola looked at me and simply called me her “Little Angel”. So, that’s the story of my name.

Going back to one of my several points, the Filipino naming system was based on stories like mine. Anecdotal observations or stories. Full of meaning, full of life, full of history. The Spanish, with their love of administration, forced us to pick a surname when before we were known by our wonderfully woven names or as “Mother/Father of [insert child’s name here]”.

Returning to the stories of my ancestry has been a journey and as you can probably tell, a serious one for me where I have been truly searching for the answers and forgotten stories. So one thing I’ve really loved as a celebrant is the yugal or cord ceremony.

Returning to the stories of my ancestry has been a journey and as you can probably tell, a serious one for me where I have been truly searching for the answers and forgotten stories. So one thing I’ve really loved as a celebrant is the yugal or cord ceremony. 

I have written about it before and I don’t think I will stop writing about it. Through learning to love my culture and my ancestry, I have truly seen the beauty in the yugal. There are many cultures that tie in marriages or unity ceremonies with a cord, braided fabric of ribbon. This simple symbol of a physical piece of fabric tying or bringing two people together in different parts of the world, in different times? There is something so romantic about it. Through human history, it is how we have symbolised love. Though by the end of the ritual the piece of fabric is taken off, after a marriage, the two partners are forever bound together.

After doing my first yugal cross handbinding for Wendy and Michael earlier this year, I have been trying to make sense of the history of the yugal and its significance to the Filipino culture. It’s been really difficult for me to pinpoint its story, but I know a few things about it quite confidently: 

• It is done by a priest

• It is done in a Catholic church

• The cord is white

• It is looped as a figure eight to represent infinity or forever

Okay great, so as I Googled to find an obscure 1980-something study I found earlier this year, I have also learnt that:

• Its origins are attributed to the Spanish. 

(This probably should have been obvious to me as it is tied with Catholicism and the Spaniards brought Catholicism to the Philippines.)

I think I will continue to share what I find about it until I have the final answer but anyway from this 1980-something study, I learnt that it was also meant to symbolise that the responsibilities of matrimony was to be shared between the pair. I want to do a whole write up on my wedding at the State Library of New South Wales with Sarah and Mikhail but for now, I will have to share this photo I screenshotted from Mikhail’s insta story! 

Yugal ceremony that I incorporated into the final blessing

It is so funny. They found me by looking through the registry, randomly landed on my name and said they liked it, looked at my blog and saw that I was Filipino and did the yugal. When I did the yugal for them, I chose the red ribbon again because I love how modern it looks compared to the traditional wedding cords. Many cultures use red to represent love, I tied its ends with a pair of dragonflies again as I love that dragonflies represent a new beginning. I was actually meant to gift them these dragonflies but I ended up taking them home! I will name them Sarah and Mikhail from now on, and add the names of the next couples as their middle names.

As well as having the opportunity to do the yugal ceremony with Sarah and Mikhail, which I linked with a final blessing, Alison Pickel reached out The Celebrant Society members to see who spoke Tagalog. Having met Ange from Love by Ange at last year’s TCS Conference, she always encouraged me to get into the Filipino market. I took this encouragement to reach out to Alison. 

Alison requested that I write the monitum and legal vows in Tagalog. Fellow Filipino marriage celebrants, if you would like a copy of these, please contact me! I am more than happy to share but am a little uncertain about sharing it publicly on the internet as I know how the Titas and Titos can get! I happily obliged, using Google translate, my parents and a Tagalog dictionary to translate the words from English to Tagalog. 

Yes, some Tagalog words have Spanish origins but Filipinos mostly kept their native language. For me, this meant a lot of repetition of syllables and additional vowels. After I was happy with my translation of the monitum and legal vows, I practiced with my parents. Their response? Bring some Panadol. The Tagalog speakers will get a headache from trying to understand me. & voila, perfect example of Tita and Tito behaviours! You have to have thick skin and a good sense of humour to be Filipino! I mostly do okay but I think being Aussie born, I am a little more sensitive than my Filipino born counterparts and also have the western values of boundaries! Funnily enough I just google translated the word “boundaries” in Tagalog and found an English word - LIMIT! Goes to show that having personal boundaries is not a Filipino concept! 

It is so ironic to me. I wanted to become a celebrant to write and although I am writing through this blog and through my ceremonies, I am also fully exploring the different parts of me. Being a celebrant is challenging. 

My limits for initial consultation meetings? One hour. Why? I get so tired afterwards and need to be quiet for half a day. 

My limits for weddings per weekend? Two. Why? I would need to sit in a sensory deprivation tank to recover if I had to do anymore. 

Sa mga kababayan na celebrant, reach out kayo and connect tayo! For other celebrants, if you need a Tagalog translator, I may be the person for you! For couples looking for a celebrant who yaps, grounded and a bit of a nerd - I may be the one for you!