First-timers wait 4 hours for their Independence Day parade march!

Before 10 a.m. of June 7, a sleepy 36th Street. The FilAm Photo

A dead man’s body ushered me to my first-ever Independence Day parade…as a marcher.

The body, sprawled at the corner of 36th and Broadway streets, had a wound at the forehead from which a trail of blood had dried up.

It was still early, not even 10 a.m. so I thought I’d mill around a bit and watch what the cops were doing. The five cops who were on the scene worked quietly. A couple more officers arrived on a van, joining them.

Madison Avenue beckoned a mere two blocks away. That’s where my organization, Makilala TV, and others were supposed to assemble, at the corner of 36th Street. I walked to Madison, the bounce to my step gone. Death had cast a pall of unpleasantness to what was supposed to be our annual Filipino fiesta in Manhattan.

By 10 a.m., Madison was starting to come to life. FilAm groups had gathered in cheerful chatter, some women in Filipiniana finery and men in barong Tagalog walking back and forth as they tried to locate their friends.

Other organizations had arrived early, among them a martial arts association whose children members were practicing their stunts. I watched the police officers erect steel barriers to rein in a potentially huge crowd.

One by one, my colleagues from Makilala TV arrived. Our friends trickled in with their families. We took photographs of one another and did some serious caching up with those we have not seen in a long time. The women came with flowers in their hair, and that’s the only thing we asked of them. Many of us, if not all, were marching for the first time, and we couldn’t contain our excitement.

The parade had begun sometime between 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. I caught a glimpse of celebrities, such as soprano Sylvia La Torre and New York Senator Chuck Schumer waving at the crowd. Around this time, three hours after we were told to assemble, one of our rotating co-hosts Charina Nadura had to leave because her young son was getting hungry. I couldn’t blame them. So was everyone. We passed around crackers, chocolate candies and bottles of water to keep the energy up, yet careful not to rouse the bladder. The spirit remained alive, thanks to everyone’s bonding-in-the-moment humor. We were envisioning rewarding ourselves with barbecue and halo-halo at the end of the march.

We chatted up the students of LaGuardia High School, who were in front of us, and the production team behind “Spoliarium,” who were directly behind us. At some point, our members merged distinguishable only by the color of our shirts. PAFCOM led the group on our street corner, followed by a couple more organizations, then LaGuardia, Makilala, “Spoliarium,” and others. The craziness of it all was that the groups were not alphabetically arranged.

Finally, after four hours under the sun, in hunger and in thirst and with legs numb from standing too long, the steel barrier parted. It was time to march!

March wildly we did! Makilala co-host Jen Furer led us in our cute chant:

“When I say MAKI
You say LALA
MAKILALA!”

We just made that up while waiting in the assembly line, the idea hatched by our intern Ronnie Ocampo, brother of our co-host Rachelle.

Our group of about 20 frolicky men, women and children walked, hopped, waved, chanted, danced, smiled, deriving even more energy from the crowd. We were happy to see some good friends and their families cheering us on. It was a thrill of a feeling.

There were certain blocks where only a handful of watchers gathered and blocks where the crowd was three-folds thick. People waved at us even if they probably didn’t know what Makilala was about!

It certainly didn’t feel like a dozen blocks – from 36th Street down to 23rd. Toward the finish line, we spotted Council Members Arvin Amatorio and Jonathan Wong from New Jersey, previous Makilala guests, applauding our arrival. Spontaneity broke the line as we all hugged one another.

I’ve written many times about the parade, organized yearly by the Philippine Independence Day Council, Inc., from the sidelines, never from the marcher’s walking trail. Will I do it again? Wait, how much is a float again?

Finally, Makilala TV hosts and friends get to march on Madison Avenue with thousands other FilAms in celebration of the 117th anniversary of Philippine Independence. Photo by Loren San Diego.

Marchers from the Bukidnon Association in America. Photo by Vivian Talambiras Cruz.