Charmaine Pallugna 18th Birthday Debut

Debutante Charmaine (”Cheny” or “Maine”) Pallugna, the niece of my attorney and friend, Joe Pallugna, had her coming-of-age party this past Sunday and I and my wife were invited.

I have been to six or seven weddings in The Philippines now, and to a three funerals, but this was only the 2nd Debut party I have been to and the previous one was just the week before this one.

While 18th birthday “debut” (pronounced in in France and America as “day-bue” is pronounced here as “dee-boo”) parties are not very common in America, except upon the social elite and the wannabes, I suppose they are not so common here either among the vast poor population, but I suppose I do not tend to hang out with the vast poor and thus am exposed to more of these than I would be in America.

I do not know that I can adequately describe what happens, but the first part of the ceremony was religious, almost like being in church. We prayed, sang hymns, listed to a sermon, sand some more hymns, prayed some more, and then a little more just to make sure. The Pallugna’s are protestant, belonging The Church of God, which is really not too common in The Philippines where 85% to 90% of the population is Catholic. I have not been to a Catholic celebrated debut and do not even know if they have them.

The debut party was held at a place called “The Party Venue”, quite adequately named.. Basically, this is a place created for events just as this. After the religious part of the ceremony, we feasted on lechon (whole roasted pig), spaghetti, fried chicken, and some other favorites before getting down to the actual debut part of the program.

Friends of Cheny got up and gave “testimonials” about her. Most of this was in Visayan and I’m still pretty weak in picking up much of that, but as Marissa explained it to me, Cheny’s friends we telling us all that Cheny was the first to say, “hey, let’s cut class”, or “hey, let’s go party”. I’m not saying she cuts a lot of classes, but I was under the impression a lot of people thought she was fun to be around.

Perhaps because of the religious nature of the event, there was no alcohol served. I need to thank Don Livingston for remedying that situation. He had two cases of San Miquel Pilsen left over from birthday party the week before, and brought one case of cold ones. I was lucky enough to get three of them.

After Cheny gets roasted by her friends, then there is the “18 Roses” ceremony, where she dances with 17 young men, potential suitors, then finally with her father.  If the father had not been, then an uncle or older brother would have sufficed.  The 17th young man would have been her boyfriend, if she had one.  However, this hot little Filipina princess is not taken and is now of the age of consent, and no boyfriend danced with her before her father, from what I understood.

Next comes the 18 candles ceremony which is the lighting of 18 candles by females in attendance, each of which makes a wish for the debutante’s future.  They wished for things such as a nice love life, no hurt feelings in the future relationships, for wisdom to deal with future problems, good health forever, for good and obedient children, and all the other unobtainables.
We then fade to the opening of gifts and after that the closing of the ceremony. I took photos the pretty much the whole time, seeing that this was my first time at something like this, and being a friend of the Pallugna’s and not seeing a lot of other cameras flashing, I thought it my due to do my best to record the event.

I hope Cheny will approve of what I wrote about her as I eat at her father’s restaurant almost every day, and she often serves me BBQ pork sticks and San Mig Light, and I hope she will not begin to spit on my food, so I will give her the chance to edit this post, and make sure she approves of it.

Mostly I took still shots because the lighting was not really good, and that’s why the photos did not all come out well focused and color balanced.   These shots were taken on a now ancient Sony DSC-F717.  The videos also.

Filipina Debut Video 155kpbs, 3.67 MB, 3:18 minutes, 320×240

Filipina Debut Video 58kpbs, 1.23 MB, 3:18 minutes, 160×120

Filipina Princess Debutante Party Video Photo Gallery.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Family, Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.