This study discusses the Tayábas Tagalog paawitán as a cultural arena of communicative freedom which is rendered in a joyous social manner. Paawitán is an event marked by the confluence of drinking from a common roving glass (tágay) of the local vodka (lambanóg) and performance of sung poetic songs called áwit usually accompanied by guitar and dancing. It is performed in various occasions such as baptisms, birthdays, courtship, pre-marriage ceremonies (pamamanhíkan and pasilungán), weddings,

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... social meetings. Here, tradition continues as a lively interaction especially among mostly senior citizens who exchange repartees and sallies utilizing poetic lyrics in dodecasyllabic lines in couplets, quatrains, and sestets. Themes of áwit include personal beliefs, ideas, goals and experiences, public and private attitudes and actuations, customs and traditions as well as relational values rendered in humorous fashion. As ideas and concepts multiply and crisscross in the jousting, their threads weave themselves into the framework of discourse by equivalencies, complementarities, or oppositions. As a cultural arena of communicative freedom in which tradition continues as a lively interaction, ideas and concepts circulate and are reproduced in the jousting. In the process, as this study argues, paawitán is a dialogism that works on vocality, heightening the listeners' understanding from its performance.