Death wish

Just recently, I found myself trapped in a gridlock caused by two hearses that were crawling one after the other, each followed by a throng of mourners on foot. By the look of things, each dead person had nothing to do with the other. It was just a total coincidence that one afternoon last week, I had the misfortune of being held up not by one but by two funeral processions.

Each hearse played the saddest music ever put on record. One of them blared out staple Basil Valdez songs, inducing the relatives of the dead to wail even more loudly and passionately. Each hearse was also accompanied by its own local-government escorts, who were easily identified by the name of their barangay boldly painted on their multipurpose vans. Both hearses must have been moving at a snail's pace of three kilometers per hour. Best of all, both were going against the flow of traffic, creating a huge bottleneck that probably wasted hundreds of precious man-hours.

As I sat impatiently in traffic, I tried recalling how this custom had come to be. I don't mean to disrespect the departed, but as far as I'm concerned, the practice of "walking" the deceased to the cemetery is about as sensible as refusing to take a bath on a Good Friday. Sure, I accept that we need to observe some traditions and regard these as sacred, but my rule of thumb is that we ought to keep only those that do not greatly inconvenience others. I believe in everyone's right to do whatever he or she pleases as long as it doesn't bother the next person. If you want to walk from Manila to Baguio, be my guest--just make sure your walking won't hassle me.

I recognize the need to mourn the dead, don't get me wrong. But in doing so, we shouldn't involve the world in our misery. The whole town doesn't have to come to a grinding halt just because a loved one of ours passed away. I don't think you'd give much of a hoot if you learned that one of my relatives had bitten the dust, would you?

What about celebrities who die and are buried with a massive crowd in attendance? Well, it's a different case if the cadaver is that of Ninoy Aquino or Fernando Poe Jr. Or Michael Jackson. Because then, I assure you, people wouldn't mind joining the band of wailers. It's one thing to be trapped behind the burial of someone who intrigues you; it's quite another to have a funeral procession foisted on you when you have absolutely no idea who the person lying inside the coffin is. Especially when you're running late for an important appointment.

Why do we insist on marching all the way to the cemetery? What's wrong with riding a vehicle? It's faster and a lot more convenient. Plus, our dead loved one won't know the difference, I promise you. Walking behind a hearse is nothing but an empty tradition of publicly showing our grief. If you're sincere and honest, you don't need to do that to express your sorrow. Actually, if the dead person were really dear to you, you'd have lots of opportunities to mourn his or her passing--even long after the interment.

And it's not just the burial march that's troublesome. I live in a humble neighborhood where people--either for sentimental or financial reasons--hold the wake for a dead family member inside their house. The problem is when they close the street to put gambling tables everywhere. They think that just because somebody died in their family, they suddenly have the right to be a burden to the whole community.

Often, I'd take my regular route out of our neighborhood, only to drive back and make a detour just because a grieving family had decided to bar entry of vehicles into their street. Sometimes I feel the urge to get down and remove the makeshift blockade, but I figure this act of defiance might result in another funeral wake in our place.

I love being a Filipino, as well as the many traditions that make us unique, believe me. But for progress's (and logic's) sake, there are some impractical rituals that need to be interred with the dead. And one of them is the burial march.