Halloween in the Philippines

The Halloween season is regarded as the season for supernatural and ghost stories. Durign this week, Filipinos share stories of ghosts, hauntings and supernatural beings. Television shows also feature similar material during this time.

The Filipino version of trick-treat is pangangaluluwa, where young people dessed in white or drpped in white sheets go from house to house begging for food or money either in the evening or in early morning. In earlier decades, they would also steal items from the yard such as eggs, chickens or even livestock – the only day in the year when it was tolerated. This practice, however, ahs now all but died out.

 

Halloween is not a festival native to the Philippines but is a recent adaptation from American culture, and is usually celebrated in urban areas during the last week of October by throwing Halloween costumes parties. Filipinos in rural areas, however, prefer to observe the more traditional All Saints Day or Undas on the first two days of November. Because of the similarities between the two festivals, Halloween and Undas have come to be linked, and even viewed by some as one of celebration.