It's the start of the year 2024.
In a few while, the Chinese charts of the Year of the Green Dragon, also called Year of the Wooden Dragon will start to unfold.
Days before the countdown in the advent of the Roman calendar, though, now and then, there are a plethora of beliefs if not superstitions prevalent before or on the traditional New Year's eve about lucky things bring to people so Filipinos, generally, from all walks of life, especially the zealots and obscurantists, would subscribe to the most absurd collection of all kinds and varieties of fruits, specifically, rounded ones to approximate the size of coins or wearing of clothes with geometric images of circles to signify the trickles of money in the coming days.
Markets, dry and wet, groceries and department stores are crowded with customers shopping for their needs.
Jumping as high as one can once the clock strikes 12 midnight is pronounced by the ringing of the church bells or sounding of sirens or exploding of firecrackers would mean a petite, midget or a stunted person gets taller and bigger. Calling Dagul and Superstar Nora Aunor to get the call of the celebration.
Or have they, in the course of the many years of their lives (as Nora turns 71 this year), tried jumping as high even as one foot to add up to their height?
As early as November or anytime of the year, thrill seekers and fortune hunters queue in among psychics for palmistry or crystal ball gazing or tarot card reading etc. for a few bucks in the surrounding areas of Quiapo Church and elsewhere.
Unisex Nostradamuses, fortune tellers or seers as Madam Suzette Arandela, Madam Rosa or Bro. Arman Cuban are the favorite stopovers of prediction bearers and hearers.
If Madam Auring, Madam Zarah, two of the grassroots modern-day Phoebes or Cassandras, Queens of the Oracle, or the high-end Maricel Gaskell or the monikered Nostradamus of Asia Jojo V Acuin or the flamboyant Danny Cinco or the cool Rene Mariano were around, their yearly auguries would also be more diverse.
My childhood AM radio psychic was Betty Ong of yore who was the toast of fearless forecasts on anything from how many kids would a newly-wed bear to how would a person die as if she were god.
Chinese cultural influences of feng shui or geomancy are still very much etched in the Filipino psyche like hanging peso bills or the high valued dollars, however only facsimiles or play monies, on a dwarf, artificial tree purportedly to attract wealth and prosperity or tossing a ceramic plate or a figurine on air to break to pieces believed so that bad luck threatens to ruin a good cycle is broken.
Glittering golden tinfoil are often hung as drapes to lead to abundant life.
One Chinese New Year's eve, I tagged along Madam Suzette to perform good luck charm rituals in the house of insurance man Rey Cureg somewhere in Novaliches.
Arandela instructed Rey to prepare a Chinese bowl called Ingot or a glass bowl filled with uncooked sticky rice to symbolize an adherence to everlasting success.
A Prosperity Bowl of any material filled with eggs is also suggested by geomancers for an eternal flow of luck and happiness.
No matter how discouraging the religious are in homilies or bus preaching, the horoscope fanatics cannot be restrained.
Let Madam Suzette say the economy of the Philippines would still rebound in the fourth quarter of the year because of recession and inflation, national economists would concur or say otherwise.
Let Arandela predict local show business will improve this year, entertainers would still chart their own destinies depending on the whims and caprices of film or TV or theater capitalists and their cohorts.
Let Arandela declare that President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. would improve the country's economy, eradicate poverty and curb corruption, his critics would say otherwise.
TV shows and podcasts would stream a variety of prophets of boon or doom to the delight or consternation of the viewers.
As early as three in the wee hours of the morning, Gumaca, Quezon native Brother Robert Arandela would report and make it on time to the location or remote set of GMA Network's "Unang Hirit" which comes out as a wake-up call at five thirty to announce his predictions.
Just like on New Year's Day, Madam Suzette was the special guest in GMA Network's early morning show to discuss what fate awaits the audience in 2024.
Magazines, booklets, leaflets, flyers or in the digital age, Facebook walls and other apps are spaces to fill up with all sorts of tips and images in achieving luck all throughout the year.
Traditional practices abound to keep the believers from all sectors of society, mostly the masses, at bay, against kill joys.
Does simply practicing these rituals make one richer, since in this material world, what matters most is money?
Or one's knowledge of labor rights like conscious participation in the profit-oriented production of all sorts of jobs and human capital investment to uphold in acquiring an equal share of wealth?
Shorts: Star for All Seasons Vilma Santos winning the 2023 Metro Manila Film Festival Best Actress plum for the movie "When I Met You in Tokyo" is still being argued when critics say there was an alleged rigging of the results of the contest as she is affiliated with Christopher de Leon (her leading man in the film) and Tirso Cruz III, the Chairman of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) who is also in the project who they say has a hand in the annual fest's awarding. Subjectively, Noranians, the nemesis of Vilmanians--Vilma fans--are again raising issues such as Vilma's not having been named a National Artist, which is the highest recognition of all Philippine arts awards. Some quarters, though, are heaping praises on Vilma like John Lloyd Cruz who said that she deserves the honor...As an entertainment journalist, I don't see any rigging in the results except the question of how they were decided on by human minds...Theater actor Paul Cedrick Juan got the biggest break in his infant film acting career when he won Best Actor for the historical drama "GomBurZa" where he beat veteran thespian Piolo Pascual...Balladeer Nilo de Castro has meaty performances in two out-of-town Christmas shows, one at Jewel Homes in General Trias, Cavite under the auspices of newshen Vilma Manzo and at the Villasanta Clan Get-Together in Lopez, Quezon. The ex-barangay chair in Santo Nino of Coco Martin's "Ang Probinsiyano" and singer of the Water Plus Recording's "Minsan Lang" was a hit in his gigs both as the casual Nilo and the comedian Bokyo, a kid trapped in a body of an adult.
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