Marinduque's Moryons

the Palm Sunday Parade with Centurione Org. Inc

Manila Bulletin – Thu, Apr 5, 2012

              MANILA, Philippines - In 1960, when the Marinduque Moryon Festival was one-and-a-half century old, this Lenten practice underwent a transformation. From a highly individualistic, personal pursuit, it became part of a team effort, an attempt by municipal and tourism authorities to regulate and put a semblance of order in an otherwise, disparate, dispersed, unfettered display of cultural and religious observance.
               Part of the reason is to cater to tourists. The other is an honest-to-goodness desire by scholars and educators to revive an otherwise dying, highly localized ethnic tradition. The old moryon practices, seen by native residents as spontaneous, unrehearsed Lenten jollity, have turned into a ritualized display of religious fervor.
               History will judge whether the transformation was a positive spin that allows us to enjoy this unique Lenten tradition, or we have simply lost and will never regain the old comical, amusing, unrehearsed way Marinduqueños view their Lenten rites.
                 Before he became a National Artist, Alejandro "Anding" Roces, already a famous short story writer, essayist, dramatist and raconteur, was invited in 1960 as guest speaker in Gasan, one of four in Marinduque's six towns where the moryon tradition has been observed.
Roces was intrigued by what he saw. He said there's nowhere else in the Philippines that this Lenten tradition is observed.
                The moryon is practiced by colorfully adorned masked men and children, carrying a wooden sword or spear, sometimes a pair of wooden musical instrument called kalutang. The moryons go prancing around town, scaring toddlers and talking in stylized, falsetto voices.
During subsequent visits to Marinduque for the next three or four succeeding years to observe the moryonan, Roces would bring along artists, painters, writers, journalists, and members of the media. This eventually exposed the moryon to the world's attention.
                 Most notable among Roces' entourage were his brother, painter and writer Alfredo Roces, painters Malang, Botong Francisco, and Gene Cabrera, cartoonist Nonoy Marcelo, and a horde of Manila photojournalists. He also brought to Marinduque Celso Carunungan, an award-winning writer, novelist and scriptwriter, who was requested to write a script for the re-enactment of the Longinos chase and his subsequent beheading.
                To put a semblance of order in an otherwise widely arrayed moryonan, the town elders have decided that henceforth, all participants must wear a prescribed costume, nothing outlandish that is not supposedly part of the tradition. Prizes were also offered to the most original, colorful, unique, moryon attire.
Subsequently, Roces and other writers called the affair morion and its plural moriones, a reference to the medieval armor worn by Roman centurions.
                   And this is what Roces saw of the original way the moryonan has been practiced.
At the start of Holy Monday, ending on Easter Sunday, men and children don masks carved of softwood dapdap, paper mache, carton boxes, big clay jars, or any material that would suffice to conceal the wearer and make fools of themselves. They go prancing and cavorting on the noonday heat, and reveling in the once-a-year affair for nothing else better than hilarious buffoonery.