MOUNTAIN PROVINCE, Philippines – November 1 weather in the town of Sagada is almost predictable: gray clouds, a cold breeze, and an afternoon drizzle. It was as if the anitos or spirits were asking for warmth.

Panag-apoy: Sagada Undas tradition sparks community healing

And so late in the afternoon on Wednesday, at the Calvary Hill Cemetery in Poblacion here, residents began passing torches of pine saplings or saleng to light the piles of pine needles that they had collected on top of the tombs.

CALVARY Hill Cemetery, Sagada, Mountain Province, November 1, 2023. Photo courtesy of Magdalena Fokno

The thick, pungent smoke mixed with the fog as the people huddled on the tombs to pray.

There are no huge mausoleums here – just simple, whitewashed crosses, which the Episcopalian priest blessed as he walked down the hill.

This annual tradition is called panag-apoy, Kankana-ey for “to light a fire.”

Tour operators had been advertising this as the Sagada Fire Festival, but it is far from that. It is a tradition that started in Sagada, but a fairly recent one – probably started by a resident who cleaned the tomb and decided to light the pine needles he collected.

But it has become a spark for community healing among the Sagada residents during the Undas.