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“Boling-Boling” is an old age practice particular to Catanauanins, which is celebrated annually starting on the Sunday and ends on Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday and signals the start of the Lenten Season. Participants roam around the town garbed in any costume they may fancy. Most of them wear colourful clown-like clothes while others imitate anybody whom they despise and make fun of them. It is the Pinoy version of carnival.

No one can tell exactly when and how this practice started, not even the oldest resident of this town located at the heart of Bondoc Peninsula.

Senior women wearing brightly coloured dresses and hats with flowers sing and dance from one house to another to solicit cash donations, half of which is given to the local Parish Church for its expenses during the Lenten Season activities and the other half for their own group’s civic projects.

“Boling-Boling” comes from the visayan word “Boling” which means dirt. This reminds us that we are sinners and that we need to repent, do some spiritual cleansing and get ourselves ready for the Lenten Season. In earlier times, Catanauanins had a grandiose merry-making during the Boling-Boling as, starting the following day, which is Ash Wednesday, they will keep silent suspending all merry-makings until the Black Saturday in reverence to the Lenten Season.

Some men skimpily clad in their undergarments put on mud or grease with charcoal all over their bodies and roam around the town trying to scare young women and children for fun.

You can see more pictures here.

Where: Catanauan is a charming and idyllic little fishing town in Quezon, the capital of Bondoc Peninsula. Directly facing the island of Marinduque it is about 250 km from Manila.

When: Annually. Starting on Sunday preceding Ash Wednesday.

My rate: 9/10. A lovely old town. No tourists around. Pure fun.

Info from: My Sarisari Store.

Popularity: 10% [?]

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Quezon Province, Road Trip, Travel Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.