One beautiful and endearing trait of the rural people of yesteryears was the spirit of damayan or mutual community help. This admirable spirit was a traditional expression of mutuality and communality among our forebears when existence was a continuous struggle for survival. Possibly, the provenance of damayan was borne out of experience, for without it the early inhabitant would not survive.
History would reveal that the early Filipino settlers had to overcome an unfriendly if not hostile the environment, the weather, the terrain, wild animals, and men themselves. People had to group into communities and help one another. Otherwise, they would not last long. Unity was strength and the early settlers knew it.
In this somnolent barrio, the damayan spirit was very much alive during the memorable yesteryears. It would certainly be an exception to find anyone who would not extend a helping hand. Helping a needy neighbor was therefore as common as night would follow day.
A newlywed couple desiring to have a house of their own would easily get the help of the many well-meaning people around. With the residential site settle, relations by blood, marriage or religious ties, friends, neighbors and other would contribute in the form of materials, labor and cash to have that dream house realized. The couple would not expect a mansion but it would be something they could call truly their own.
Community action would suddenly spring the moment a family in the barrio decides to move their house to a new site. The size and type of the house would determine the number of people required to move it. A house being moved by a large group of men now being used as a symbol of damayan– that spirit of community cooperation.
Many barrio social functions were also affected strongly by this community spirit of help. During weddings, baptisms or funerals, many would extend help materially, morally and spiritually. Help would be unsolicited and given straight from the heart with no string attached. A hog, goat, chicken, rice or even cash would be given while others would render personal services during the occasion.
In other barrio affairs like the Santa-Cruzan, Flores de Mayo, Fiestas, and Holy Week processions, the damayan spirit would always be at the scene. If not for community contributions, no affair of significant magnitude would be possible. Barrio rural life would always be a manifestation of damayan concept without which no group activity would succeed.
To fish alone would be a good way to spend the time but group fishing would be more profitable and less time consuming. The rural folks never studied modern management, but they knew that planned grouped action would be more efficient. The same would be true when getting logs from the forest, planting or harvesting crops, or even fighting hordes of locusts.
During harvesting of crops like corn, rice tobacco, and sugar cane, the spirit of help would always play into concerted action. Batares was the term given to this extension of group assistance. Most often, the helpers would refuse remuneration, in cash or in kind. A mug of beverage and suman plus some smoke would be more than satisfactory to the helpers. The term Bayanihan was given specifically to work rendered gratis et amore. In Pilipino, there are plenty of words that mean mutual help. These are damayan, tulungan, batares, bayanihan or kapit-bahayan
When barrio member becomes ill, the neighbor s would immediately respond to extend help, the herbolario would be summoned, food would be given, and services would be rendered. This automatic response could be at anytime of the day or night.
However, there were instances when this spirit of help would not be extended. A man quarreling with another, a man committing a crime, or a husband manhandling his wife would not evoke help. The neighbors would probably call the barrio leader or the police. Likewise, a man who lost his fortune in gambling, drinking or womanizing would not get assistance. Instead, he might even be ostracized.
Barrio people who migrated to the city would also take with them this beautiful spirit but could not be totally practiced as in the old community. The rapid pace of living, crowded living conditions, difference in dialects and ethnicity, religion and social habits, and materialism, plus other factors would be attendant in making the “help thy neighbor” concept not to work so well as in the barrio.
In that barrio today, this damayan spirit is no longer the rule but probably the exception. Greed and materialism had entered the social life. Any activity would always be reckoned in the terms of cost or return. The age-ld social factor had been replaced by the economic factor where materialism belongs. Probably even the concept of virtue has changed as typified by the following anecdote.
A boy scout with his little brother helped an old lady across a busy city street. The grateful old woman told the Boy Scout, she would have given him a quarter. The Boy Scout said that as one, he would not accept the offer; however, his little brother, with him isn’t a boy scout.