On the cusp of night, the half moon cast a mild gleam on the limestone hills. But the brightness did not emanate from the celestial source. The mountain was ablaze, not from one all-encompassing inferno, but from numerous small bonfires surrounding assemblies of tombstones and crosses in the hillside cemetery. It was the first of November, and the locals had gathered to light fires around the graves of loved ones in observance of Panag-apoy, Sagada’s All Saints Day commemoration. The contained conflagration would have been a festival of light if the occasion were not so solemn.

In Sagada, death is not a postscript; it takes center stage and the dead are prominently paraded. The remains of Applai elders are kept in a peculiar assortment of archaic wooden boxes piled on top of each other in burial caves, or in crumbly coffins dangling from limestone cliff faces. Strangely enough, there is nothing morbid about this exhibition of ancient burial practices dating back 500 years. Death is part of the landscape. And All Saints Day is observed with equal devotion and a sense of normality.

I followed a priest uttering prayers and dispensing blessings around the array of whitewashed headstones, a congregation behind him in a long procession. I read the names of strangers etched on markers, the same names that had been called out individually during the earlier church service as they were similarly recognized every year during All Saint’s Day. No name was left out. Every single departed member of the community was remembered, hence the roll call of the dead in the Episcopalian church took time to complete. (Contemplating how long-drawn-out it would be in another 50 years, I shook my head in bewilderment.) In the same ceremony, bundled pinewood splinters brought by the locals were consecrated. The highly flammable saleng was preferred to candles to illuminate the cemetery — a matter of custom and practicality.