MANGKOKOLUM!

Lavish feast for ascetic saint BALAYAN, Batangas: Howler ‘Falcon’ won’t have anything to do with the swelling surge of what looks like floodwaters here—it’s only beer being emptied into huge galvanized iron tubs called bañeras that usually hold a plethora of catch off the nearby bay and beyond. A boisterous binge of beer and serving upon heaping serving of roast suckling chunks unfolds to stuff revelers and guests, to honor the most revered patron saint of Batangas—St. John the Baptist. Savor the irony: the hermit as voice in the wilderness subsisted on the pulp and seeds of the carob tree, edible roots and locust. His birthday-- it falls on summer solstice, roughly six months before the birth of Christ-- is celebrated here with the renowned “Parada ng Lechon” (Parade of Roast Pig), likely to make up for in surfeit what John the Baptist lacked in his Spartan food fare. As unrepentant seeker of reforms, St. John (the name means “beloved of God”) got his head chopped off—and some revele...