Mahalaya December Edition

MAHALAYA DECEMBER 2017 EDITION

Contents Intro...............................................................1 Christmas traditions............................2 Aspect Showcase..................................4 Current Events ......................................7 Closing ...................................................... 8

Short Message from HAM: Hello everyone! We hope you had a wonderful year, and did well with finals! As the year comes to a close, we just wanted to take this time to say thank you all for reading the Mahalaya and for all the massive support for this newsletter! We hope that you all are enjoying the content we have to offer, and make sure to keep an eye out on our other projects ;) Now, go on and continue reading the Mahalaya! See you all next year! <3 HAM

Mabuhay!

T h a n k y o u fo r re a d i n g t h e D e c e m b e r Ed i t i o n o f t h e Mahalaya! The Mahalaya is a special newsletter that aims to showcase our v e r y o w n B a y a n i h a n a s w e l l a s b r i n g a w a re n e s s t o c u r re n t e v e n t s i n t h e P h i l i p p i n e s . T h e n a m e â&#x20AC;&#x153; M a h a l a y aâ&#x20AC;? ro u g h l y t r a n s l a t e s t o l o v e a n d f re e d o m , s o m e t h i n g w e h o p e t o p ro m o t e a n d s p re a d w i t h i n o u r c o m m u n i t y t h ro u g h t h e u s e o f t h i s n e w s l e t t e r. I f y o u h a v e a n y s u g g e s t i o n s o n w h a t we should add or change to the Mahalaya, please e m a i l : a d m o f f i c e r. u c s c @ g m a i l . c o m ! We a re a l w a y s u p fo r s u g g e s t i o n s : D

Happy Holidays! Love, HAM

Christmas in the Philippines

With around 80% of the Pilipinx in the Philippines being Roman Catholic Christian, Christmas has become one of the most important holidays in the Philippines. While Christmas is celebrated worldwide, there are various customs and traditions that are uniquely “Pinoy”. The origin of Christmas can be traced back during the Spanish era in the Philippines, when the Spaniards brought Christianity to the islands.

“Ber Months” Every year, the countdown to Christmas starts on September 1st.

Once the “ber” months set in, everyone will begin decorating their houses, establishments, and streets with gleaming displays, huge Christmas trees, and astounding decorations. Around November, there may also be christmas carolers going door to door, or performing in shopping malls.

Parols A Parol is a Philippine lantern traditionally made from colorful papers, bamboo sticks, and is most commonly shaped like a five-pointed star. The Parol is inspired by the “Star of Bethlehem”, the star that lit up the night sky and led the Three Wise Men to the manger where Jesus was born, in the “The Nativity of Jesus Christ”. The starshaped lanterns are commonly displayed hanging outside houses, along the busy streets of the cities, and even in provincial towns and small villages. The Parol also symbolizes the triumph of light over darkness and Filipinos’ goodwill during Christmas season.

Simbang Gabi Simbang Gabi is a nine-day series of masses that starts from December 16 to Christmas eve. Masses start as early as 4 A.M. This tradition traces its roots from the Spanish Colonial Era, to allow Filipino farmers to attend mass before working in the fields.

Aspect Showcase Meet: Isang Himig

Left: Claudia Jose Right: Dominic Nicolas

Claudia: “IH stands for Isang Himig, which roughly translates to “one melody”. We are a multicultural acapella group housed under Bayanihan, and as a group, we hope to foster a space that is safe for everyone, and everyone can feel like they are part of a family. We also promote retention and diversity through our love of music!”

Dom: “IH is the multicultural acapella group housed under Bayanihan. We like to sing… and we like to sing!”

Q: What events does IH hold or attend, and what songs do you plan on performing this year?

C: “Our two main events that we host are the IH Winter and Spring showcases, which are typically at the end of the quarter, and the songs we are going to teach are a surprise~ For Winter quarter, we have some songs up our sleeves that a pretty cool, so watch out for that. We also perform at our annual Pilipino Cultural Celebration (PCC), and what we plan to do is to teach the set for PCC during Winter quarter, and one of the songs in that set will be performed at our Winter Showcase. So basically one of our PCC songs will be performed during Winter Showcase, to help with time and everything. We also perform for other events, orgs and aspects like Unity, which PDT hosts, and the Multicultural festival, which we do every year.

Those are the biggest ones I can think of right now.”

D: “Every Winter and Spring Quarter, we usually have a showcase. That’s where all of our members get to perform individual songs, and perform the songs that we learn as a group. Those would be songs that we would perform at Multicultural festival, and PCC. Next quarter, we have a bunch of exciting songs, I think everyone is going to really like it!”

Q: “What is IH Legacy?”

C: “So IH Legacy… I don’t really remember when it began, but it’s basically a space for alumni to continue singing in an acapella group. So it’s basically IH Alumni, and it kind of died down a few years ago for reasons I don’t really know, but I’m hoping the current alumni, maybe those who graduated in the past two years, can start it up again, and they could perform for one of our showcases.”

D: “I really do want to bring back IH Legacy too because I think it’s very important to keep in touch with our roots - or in this case our alumni - and see how far IH has come. I just want to make sure that we are continuing their work, because I know that they worked extremely hard to get on mainstage, to keep the group

together, and create a really well rounded group. I really want to keep that going as a coordinator, not only for my year, but also for future years.”

Q: “Are you planning on starting IH Legacy this year?”

D: “We’ll try our hardest for it to get established this year because honestly, if we don’t do it now, then when is someone going to do it?”

Q: What do you want your aspect members to walk away with by the end of the year?

D: “I really want them to be happy that they are singing with the group. Some people are really shy right now, it’s the beginning of the year, but I want them to feel like anyone of them could have gone up for the solo, and I want them to feel confident and happy that they were in the group.”

C: “I want them to feel like they have a space where they belong, and where they can feel comfortable to be themselves. I also want them to grow musically, and feel more confident in their musical skills and voices, and be able to share their passion for music with other people.”

Q: What/who inspired you to run as Coheads for IH? C: “Actually, my brother inspired me because he went to Santa Cruz, and he was part of what was known as FSA before. He was a People Power Coordinator, and was really involved with IH, and led IH legacy. I watched him in PCC, and one of his performances with IH legacy, so that inspired me to join IH in the first place. And then, my first year, when Calvin was the coordinator, he really inspired me to run and go through with the position” D: “A big inspiration for me were the previous IH CO’s, Justin Ng and Rio, from my first year. I saw that they were working really really hard through-

out the year, especially since they are students, and they had their own stuff to deal with. So, the fact that they made everything work out inspired me to do the same. I wanted to create that same environment that I had for new incoming members. I want new members to have the experiences that I had. There was one point during the year where it was really rough - noone was showing up to practice, which took a really heavy hit on the COs and all of IH because it really made us consider if it was still worth to go to practice or to do the performances… Watching how they kept it all together despite all that - They really inspired me to just give 100%.”

Q: What is your favorite part of IH? C: “The best part of IH would probably be when we learn a song, and we come together and sing it, hearing all the individual part come together as a group is really cool. We learn our parts individually - soprano, alto, tenor, bass - and then we come together in the end to sing together, and it’s really good to hear how the arrangement plays out.”

D: “For me, I would have to say the friends that you make during practices especially, because usually what we do is we split off into groups, and that’s when you really get to know each other since there are only a couple of people per singing section. That’s one of the ways that we really get to make friends. Also, from personal experience, that’s where I made most of the personal connections I have now to people on core, to upperclassman, and to alumni. I was able to make so many friends, and that was my favorite things that I liked because we were all singing and all happy, and that’s all really fun for me.”

Q: Do you use your own arrangements?

C: “We’ve been using other arrangements so far, like for Christmas in the Park, we used an arrangement

by Justin Ng. Oh wait, we did do the arrangement for the workshop we held in the beginning of the quarter, where we sang Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You”. In the future, we do plan to arrange for PCC and Winter Showcase.”

Q: Since this is the Holiday Christmas Edition, what is your favorite Christmas song/carol?

C: “I really liked Justin’s arrangement of ‘This Christmas’, it was really cool , and we sang that for Christmas in the Park. But my favorite Christmas song ever would have to be ‘The Christmas Song’. It’s actually just called that! It goes like “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire - that one!” And I also like ‘Do you hear what I hear’, but the Elmo version.”

D: “I actually really like the song we sang in Christmas in the Park - ‘This Christmas’. It was actually my first solo as an IH member, so it has a special place in my heart~”

Q: Any final words/shoutouts?

C: “Uh… I LOVE IH! YA!” D: “Just shoutout to everyone on core. I know all of us our working hard, and I hope ya’ll did well on your finals. Big shoutout to my CO Claudia, definitely couldn’t do this without her, and I’m looking forward to the things that we are gonna do.”

DENGUE VACCINE RECALLED

The first promising vaccine for dengue

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi had

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a disease that afflicts hundreds of mil-

developed the world's first vaccine for the

lions of people around the world â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is in

Dengue vaccine, Dengvaxia, and with this

jeopardy after the Philippines suspended it,

vaccine, the Philippines had instated a im-

amid widespread fears about its safety and

munization programme that cost 3.5 billion

growing public anger over its use in 830,000

Philippine pesos (or about 69 million dol-

schoolchildren.

lars).

Dengue fever is a viral disease transmitted

However, Sanofi recently cautioned that

by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same

Dengvaxia, "may be ineffective or may

insect responsible for spreading Zika, chiku-

theoretically even increase the future risk

ngunya and yellow fever. Symptoms include

of (hospitalization) or severe dengue illness

high fever, headaches and vomiting. More

in those who are (uninfected) at the time of

severe cases can lead to severe bleeding,

first vaccination."

shock and death, also known as Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS).

Although not completely confirmed, the immunization programme has been shut down, and clinical trials have begun to see if Dengvaxia is truly harmful for those that have been unaffected prior. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/philippines-probes-deaths-after-dengue-vaccine-suspended https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/dengue-fever-reference#1 http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/health/dengue-fever-vaccine-dengvaxia-philippines-intl/index.html

Thanks for reading!

This is all we have for this edition of the Mahalaya! Short and Sweet! We really hoped you enjoyed reading! If you have any suggestions or questions, please email admofficer.ucsc@gmail.com!

For more content, check out our youtube channel too :D (Bayanihan at UC Santa Cruz) Also, if you would like to stay further updated with all the events happening in Bayanihan, join our facebook page! All updates and important announcements will be posted there!

OH AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS :D