Tabat as a Living Musical Heritage: The Pasyon Tradition of Atimonan, Quezon as a Community-Based Music Education Resource

Tabat is one of the cultures in the town of Atimonan, Quezon Province. It is a ritual practice that is commonly heard in the town during the Lenten season. It is mostly done by the elderly, such as cantor & cantores, tagasenyas, and musikero’s who repeatedly chant authentic compositions accompanied by rhythmic instrumentations. Tabat intersects with localized culture, music, and contextualized identity. Using a descriptive-historical study, this study explores the origin, communal participation, the music, the process, roles, and performance of Tabat, contributing to the body of Philippine contextual and cultural preservation.While there is much research to pasyon, studies on the field of faith-based community ritual integrating music educational resources remain underexplored. The study argues that the concept of Tabat can be a potential resource in community-based music education. Given the situation, by exploring and examining Tabat, the study underscores diverse contributions and discourse to the body of music teaching, teacher training, and cultural heritages. From this context, integrating Philippine ritual in an education framework fosters societal engagement in education, awareness of identity, and conducive movement through music education. Ultimately, Tabat cannot be called “merely music” but can play an important role in bridging cultural ideology, contextual knowledge that will contribute to the Filipino musical pedagogy that will strengthen teaching education, especially in the Philippine music and cultural education.