‘Healing Bath’ Also a Matter of Faith

FOR CENTURIES, people in Los Banos in Laguna have come to believe that there is more to bathing in the town’s hot springs at the foot of Mount Makiling. “The water can cure diseases (such as) skin rashes, open wounds and can even ease the effects of hypertension or mild stroke,” says Connie La was, 61. Lawas says her mother-in-law, who regularly bathed in the hot springs, had lived longer than most elders. (Her in-law died at 114 years old last year.) So does Edna Tandang, 56, whose father was a patron of public bath. Despite having suffered a mild stroke, he had reached the age of 84.

Procession

Both Lawas and Tandang are devotees of the Elejer, a Catholic procession in honor of the town’s patron, the Nuestra Sefiora de Aguas Santas (Virgin of the Holy Waters). “It’s not just the water but the faith and hope the bathing draws out that heal a person,” Tan­dang says. Elejer is participated in mostly by elders who dance in the streets in a carinosa-type music while reciting a Tagalog prayer to the Virgin Mary. The ritual ends as devorees gather at the lakeshore for a fluvial parade of fishermen hoping for a bountiful catch or the “healing bath” in the hot springs. The tradition traces its roots to 1590 when Franciscan priest Pedro Bautista cre­ated a public bath he called the “Los Banos.” The hot water, with a temperature be­tween 38 and 40 degrees Celsius, comes from the springs of Makiling, an inactive volcano.

 

Mineral content

Results of laboratory tests conducted by the Los Banos Water District in 2009 showed that the water actually contained minerals such as sulfur, potassium, bicar­bonate, zinc, calcium and silica that aid blood circulation, help remove body toxins, normalize heartbeat, and strengthen body tissues. “(Elejer) is a dance to honor Mary. It’s a dance with Mary to get healed,” says Robi Cereno of the Turismo de Los Banos, a pri­vate organization of local traders promot­ing tourism.

 

Cereno, who also heads the Makiling Botanic Gardens of the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, was commis­sioned by the local government to concep­tualize the Banamos festival, which was first staged in 2002 to celebrate the town’s founding anniversary in September. This year, “we (in coordination with the government) wanted something that could make Los Banos’ different from other festiv­ities,” Cereno says. The first option was to highlight the “buko” (coconut) pie, a product for which the town is also known for. “But we thought the buko pie just (became popular) in the ’60s ” Cereno says.

 

Wellness destination

He says that as local tourism works along the line of promoting the town as a “well­ness destination,” the old hndition of the Elejer has been revived as part of the Ba- namoson Sept. 14-18. The Elejer has never been gone, Cereno says, but since the 70s, only Barangays Mayondon, Bayog. Anos and Maahas have kept the practice alive and only during fiestas. “It was also ‘distorted’ as men dressed in gowns made a mockery of the dance. It rather became a katuwaan (a form of jest),” he says. With the revival of the Elejer as a town celebration, some 3,800 residents joined the 3-kilometer procession from the Im­maculate Conception parish in Barangay Baybayin to the Paciano Rizal Park at the town proper on Sept. 17, say’s municipal in­formation officer Oji Sanchez. “The procession lasted for about three hours because of the dance,” he says.

 

About 200 devotees took part in the “healing bath.” People actually dipped only half of their bodies or simply washed their arms and legs in the hot springs. The “bath” was held at Lake View Well­ness Resort, one of the oldest hot spring re­sorts, and at the Los Banos Therapeutic Massage Center and Health Spa. a govern­ment livelihood training center. “Even the Church was happy because faith was really in it. You could see some washing their bodies with their eyes dosed,” Cereno says.