1. Pasyon
and
Pastores

2. Pasyo
n

3. The Pasyon is a verse narrative about
the life and suffering of Jesus Christ. The
verses are structured in five-line stanzas,
with each line containing eight syllables.
The pasyon is commonly sung during Holy
Week, starting Holy Monday. The reading of
the pasyon is a traditional religious practice
in the Philippines and people gather around
the reader of the pasyon to listen and
reflect. It is seen by many of its practitioners
as a vow or panata.

4. The Origin of Pasyon
The tradition of chanting the pasyon
is not rooted to the Spanish language that
the songs were originally written in. but is
connected to the singing of epics during
cultural celebrations among indigenous
Filipinos. The pasyon is usually chanted a
capella though occasionally the chanters
may be accompanied by guitars or a
rondalla band.

5. The first version of the
Tagalog pasyon was written by
Gaspar Aquino de Belen in 1704.
It was entitled Mahal na Passion ni
Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin
na Tola (The poem of the Passion
of our Lord Jesus Christ). Belen's
pasyon went through at least four
revisions, with the fifth edition
printed in 1760.

6. Another popular version of the pasyon is
the Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni
JesuCristong Panginoon Natin na Sucat Ipag-
alab nang Puso nang Sinomang Babasa (The
History of the Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord
that will set afire the
heart of whosoever reads it), which was
published by an unknown writer in
1814. This text continues to be used to the
present day among the Tagalogs
though different versions and translations of the
pasyon can be found among
other Filipino subcultures.

7. Versions of Pasyon
Several versions of the pasyon
began to circulate afterwards, written by
anonymous authors. These versions were
branded heretical by Spanish friars. In the
early 19th century, a native priest named
Mariano Pilapil compiled
several of these texts and purged them of
heresies. The resulting work is
known as the Pasyong Pilapil or Pasyong
Henares.

8. Pastores

9. Pastores is Christmas season folk dance
and song practiced in many parts of Samar.
The pastores (shepherds) recounts the story of
the shepherds who visited the child Jesus in
the manger through a song. They go house to
house singing the daygon (worship). In some
place the song is also called pastores or
pastorada. These are songs of happy mood
with a uniform message that tells the people to
rejoice because the Savior was born. Most of
the daygon are sung in Waray but the oldest
ones are in Spanish or mixed diglot.

10. A daygon version found in Can-
avid, Eastern Samar was a diglot with
opening line goes like “ Bulan han
Diciembre, bulan nga bulahan. Kami nga
mga pastores nagrarayhak..." The song
is ended with a Spanish invitation:
"Vamos, vamos pastores de Belen".
Dancing then became inevitable
because of the happy mood. Women
bring in some bagol (coconut shell
halves struck together) and wear hats
with red ribbons.

11. By: Dan Andre L. Azucena