The Sinulog as mental sharpener

Jobers Bersales

I’m sure the last thing on the minds of many who witnessed and savored the latest well-organized Sinulog Festival was the names of streets that one either needed to traverse to see the festival in progress or to go to in order to meet up with others, given the silence of our mobile network providers that day.

But that is exactly what happened to many on that day: Realizing how important street names and landmarks are when all cellular networks are unavailable and life gets back to the rudiments of memorizing the time and place to meet — a life prior to the 1990s.

For the second year in a row, millennials have some inkling of how those of us who witnessed the Sinulog Festival in the 1980s managed to meet up and join others in carefree revelry without the benefit of mobile phones. And, yes, we did not get lost. The secret was our mental knowledge of Cebu’s street names and its landmarks and our consciousness of time.

In the age of Waze and Google Maps, this mental skill is fast disappearing, replaced by external, non-human gadgets.

And although I know it is an inconvenience brought upon us by terrorist threats, there is something good at not being able to communicate instantly even if for just one or two days:

It sharpens our sense of our surroundings, and I hope this will hold true for many, instills in us the value of being conscious of time. A few minutes late on the agreed meeting place and you’ll all end up in a quandary:

Have they left already? Am I too early? Should I wait some more? And the worst question of all to ask: Am I in the right place?

Equally important, the absence of cellular network services allows the mind to function as genetics trained it to do, without recourse to gadgets: To think, to be aware of the surroundings, to make judgment calls and to act accordingly.

The ever-present threat of a terrorist attack, it seems, has created in all of us a sense of place and of space that these would-be terrorists never intended.

I most certainly hope that everyone who went through the unintended exercise will take to heart the lessons of a day-long absence of mobile phone services; that persons matter, that planning ahead and not relying on spontaneity alone are supreme and that face-to-face communication beats mobile phone texting.

Kudos therefore to all who survived a day without texting. At least one doesn’t need the networks to do selfies.

Kudos also to Mayor Tomas Osmeña, the entire Cebu City government, the Sinulog Foundation and the Philippine National Police for the peaceful and orderly Sinulog, and for showing to all that young people can still behave if told to do so firmly. Congratulations also to the winners of the different categories in this year’s Sinulog Festival competition.