Devout Roman Catholic Ruben Enaje donned a crown of thorns as he prepared to put himself through the agonizing ordeal of being nailed to a cross -- for the 22nd time.
The 47-year-old decorator is one of 19 men in this northern Philippines village who will undergo the gruesome Easter crucifixion ritual, originally a form of penance by devotees wanting to thank God for answering their prayers.
On the one occasion he skipped it eight years ago, he said, he was struck down with stomach ulcers and his wife was taken ill.
PHOTO: AP
"It is painful and difficult. But I will continue doing this for as long as I can. This is my pledge to God," the father of four said as he prepared his ceremonial garb at his modest wooden home.
Thousands of tourists braved the tropical heat yesterday to flock to this poor farming community about an hour's drive north of the capital Manila to witness the religious rites.
The reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is part of a bloody annual spectacle that shocks outsiders in this devoutly Roman Catholic nation.
Villagers have put up three wooden crosses on a barren hill, where Enaje and the 18 others are to be crucified later in the day.
Metal nails will be driven into their palms as they lay spread-eagled over the cross, which will be raised briefly and then taken down again for the nails to be pulled out.
Hours ahead of the ceremony, scores of other local men whipped themselves bloody with strips of bamboo attached to strings to atone for their sins.
The dominant Roman Catholic Church frowns on these extreme practices.
"The Church does not recommend it because the Church is against self-flagellation," said Father Norman Vitug, the local parish priest.
"Of course when we express our faith to the Lord the Church does not want us to hurt ourselves for us to experience the Love of God," he said.
"But we cannot question somebody's faith. It's just an expression of their faith. We do not lead their lives so we do not know what happens to them while experiencing that, so we might as well respect it," the priest said.
On Wednesday, Archbishop Paciano Aniceto of San Fernando city in Pampanga Province urged devotees not to turn Holy Week into a "circus," calling flagellation and crucifixion rites "popular piety."
"There are penitents who personally see me explaining their devotion and I usually tell them not to do it for show," Aniceto said in a statement posted on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Web site.
On Thursday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque advised penitents to get tetanus shots and sterilize nails used in the crucifixions to avoid infections.
"Our ERs are always open for them to be taken cared of," he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos crammed into bus depots and snarled traffic on Thursday as the nation began a began a four-day Easter holiday.
In preparation for the mass movement of people, police have put a 120,000-strong force on nationwide alert to beef up security and police visibility during the holiday.
Police and military personnel were also being deployed to bus terminals to assist passengers and to keep watch for criminals and terrorists.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS