The Philippine Online Chronicles

Rest and relaxation may be staples for some who look forward to Holy Week celebrations in the Philippines, but so are religious pageantry and devout passion. Rich as it is with places for the vacationing tourist to visit, the archipelago is even richer with folk-inspired rituals for the foreigner to discover and the local to appreciate again and again.

In the Philippines, the Lenten season closes with a flourish as the faithful celebrate Holy Week beginning on Palm Sunday, when church-goers evoke Jesus Christs' entry to Jerusalem and wave palms at the priest during mass. Lavish processions are then held on Holy Wednesday, when the faithful march and pray behind floats depicting events or characters in the story of Christ's death and resurrection. The Last Supper is commemorated on Holy Thursday as a priest, imitating Jesus, washes the feet of community pillars who represent the twelve disciples. Throughout the week, the faithful also embark on Visita Iglesia, during which they make pilgrimages to seven churches; join the Pasyon or the Pabasa, during which the Passion of Christ is chanted continuously by families; or participate and watch the Senakulo, a play that also reenacts the Passion.

Other traditions vary from province to province—for example, the Moriones festival, commemorating the converted centurion Longinus, traditionally takes place in Marinduque—while other rituals seem to deviate from the Christian tradition altogether. It is during Holy Week that people of all faiths also make their way to Mount Banahaw in Laguna, to worship at its mystical caves, rivers and waterfalls, believing that the pilgrimage to the sacred mountain reinvigorates the powers of amulets. Indeed, as thenewstoday.info proclaims: “Lenten celebration in the Philippines is a conglomeration of quaint Christian and paganistic practices that are found nowhere else in the world.”

All these celebrations climax on Good Friday, when what is arguably the most well-known local Lenten practices of self-flagellation and crucifixion are done by penitents who seek expiation for sins and answers to prayers, or else show gratitude for their fulfillment. It is these activities that particularly catch the attention of tourists and the foreign media, who especially descend on the the province of Pampanga where flagellants and crucified penitents abound. These, as one traveler puts it, “have to be seen to be believed.”

Vivid flashes of local color are certainly intriguing, but the scrutiny accorded to them raises questions that range from Catholicism to commercialism to culture. One glaring concern is that the unadulterated folk culture might be “sacrificed on the altar of tourism,” as Robbie Tantingco warns in an article posted on goodnewspilipinas.com.

The publicity surrounding these rituals, making Holy Week seem like purely a spectacle, has also worried the Catholic Church. Paciano Aniceto, Archbishop of San Fernando de Pampanga where self-flagellation and voluntarily crucifixion are popular, once told his parishioners not to do penitence for show.

Yet even if the penitents are sincere, Tantingco points out that there are other things necessary to preserve the integrity of what they do.

“What our penitents do is a very personal and sacred act, and we should protect them from media who sensationalize, and tourists who trivialize, this act,” he writes. “When a man has himself nailed to a cross, I am sure he does it not for show or for money, but because he is fulfilling a vow, or asking God a favor, or expressing his gratitude for a favor already granted—any motive that I’m sure is private and definitely not for a reporter, interviewer or cameraman to want to know, record and broadcast to the world.”

One may also wonder how these popular practices—said by filipinoheritage.com to be rooted in and reflective of the Filipino's history of suffering, poverty and illness at the hands of abusive colonizers—truly fit in the Catholic commemoration of Christ's suffering and death.

According to cbcpnews.com, Aniceto explained that “such practices [like flagellation and crucifixion] thrive due to lack of cathecists which results into failure to deepen the people's understanding of the Paschal mystery.” The Catholic Church actually discourages flagellations and crucifixions, explaining that God's forgiveness can be merited without undertaking these acts.

Emphasis on flagellation and crucifixion as central activities during Holy Week may also send the wrong message about the true meaning of the Lenten season—a meaning that lies not only in Christ's suffering, but ultimately in his redemptive sacrifice and resurrection.

“I propose that for the modern Filipino, dogma must instead emphasize the element of love and self-meaning, to focus not on Christ’s dying but his choosing to die rather than live,” writes Raul Pangalanan on inquirer.net as he discusses why Holy Week, the “season of faith,” must have become detached from daily life. “The goal is not to induce feelings of guilt (“mahiya ka”) or pity (“maawa ka”) but to foster the will to live a life of meaning (“mabuhay ka”), or in Thoreau’s words, 'to live life deliberately.'”

Filipinos do embrace Christ's resurrection as much as they emphasize his suffering and death. Come Easter Sunday, a grand salubong (“welcome”) is staged as people re-enact and celebrate the meeting of the Risen Christ and his Sorrowful Mother by driving statues of them from different points in the town. Once the procession ends at the church and the images meet, young girls dressed as angels lift the veil covering Mary's face, signifying the end of her suffering. It is the final ritual of Holy Week, happily and hopefully ending a seven-day saga in the Philippines where piety is most spectacular and sincere.

Photo: “The Crucifixion” by Saphiroo on Flickr.com. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0.