My First Philippine Funeral

This is my first experience with a Philippine funeral and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Tatay passed on 3/27 so today is the 9th day but since the priest doesn’t work on Sunday it turned into a 10 day ordeal. Tatay’s brother wanted the coffin in our car port, then he wanted it in the driveway, but my wife had it placed in the nice house we built for Tatay and Nanay on the back of our property.

The gate has been left open every evening and night and people come by the dozen, people I’ve never seen before. They play cards and mahjong all night but when the sun comes up most are gone. They consume a lot of food and drink. We don’t supply alcohol but we now have a sari sari store on the property and we’re making money selling beer and cigarettes. There must be close to a hundred people here at midnight. I spend my mornings picking up cigarette butts and candy wrappers. We keep a pristine property but Filipinos don’t think twice about throwing trash on the ground.

Tatay will be buried tomorrow. I’ve excused myself from the services. They all know I’m an atheist who doesn’t participate in such rituals. Tatay was only 66 when he checked out. He had health problems for a while. I hope I go the same way as Tatay. He woke up in the morning, ate a good breakfast and stopped living. No long hospital stays, more like turning off a switch. The nephews were running around not knowing what to do. One asked me to call the ambulance but I don’t even have a Philippine phone. Another nephew hailed a tricycle and made it to where the ambulance is parked but there was no driver. By the time they found a driver and loaded Tatay in the ambulance I was pretty sure it was too late.

A lady who takes care of funerals in the area showed up right away. She offered a few packages, a P27K bare bones package, a P45K package and all the bells and whistles package for something like P60K. We went with the cheapest one but I believe when she saw our house and the Americano who is me she came back saying Tatay would not fit in the P27K coffin so we had to agree to the P45K deal. I hope Nanay stays in good health because I’m not going through this again. I’ll take a 9 day sightseeing road trip when the next family member passes.