For more than a year, Caspien Gruta has been teased because his circumcision — a rite of passage for boys in the Philippines — was delayed, first by a volcanic eruption and then the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I worry if I don’t get circumcised now, I will be shamed,” 12-year-old Gruta said.
The Philippines has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the world, with many seeing the centuries-old practice as key for boys to enter manhood.
Photo: AFP
Even as circumcision comes under increasing scrutiny elsewhere, with some critics branding it child abuse, it is rarely questioned in the Philippines, and boys face tremendous pressure to undergo the procedure. Every year, thousands of pre-teens have the operation free of charge at government or community-sponsored clinics.
However, last year, the “circumcision season” was canceled for the first time in living memory due to a COVID-19 outbreak, delaying the milestone for many boys like Gruta. who have been ridiculed by their male relatives and friends.
Gruta was one of the oldest boys to line up at a covered basketball court turned makeshift clinic in Silang, south of Manila, in one of the few provinces, Cavite, that have slowly been resuming the free service since May.
“I feel like I’m a genuine Filipino now,” Gruta said after the 20-minute procedure.
Wearing masks and face shields, the boys sat on plastic chairs near a row of wooden tables surrounded by a red curtain. Some looked excited or did their best to appear nonchalant, while others fidgeted.
After removing their shorts, the youngsters lay down on tables with their legs hanging over the edges and their groins covered by operating sheets. Some bit into a facecloth or covered their eyes as they were given a local anesthetic. The surgeon then went to work.
“I got circumcised because they said I will grow taller and I will get better in sports,” said 12-year-old Almer Alciro, who went to another outdoor clinic for his procedure.
His family could not afford a private hospital where the operation costs as much as 12,000 pesos (US$241) — more than what many workers earn in a month.
While he waited for the free service to resume, Alciro’s friends mocked him as “uncircumcised” — an insult similar to “coward.”
Circumcision has been practiced in the Philippines for centuries, enduring wars and colonizations by Spain and the US. Boys as young as eight face pressure to go under the knife. Even hospital advertisements urge boys to “Be Man Enough.”
Mass circumcisions are common from April to June, when school children are on a long break.
Circumcision is an important “demarcating line” between boys and men, when the youngsters take on more responsibility in the family and learn about sex, said Nestor Castro, a professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines.
“Once a boy gets circumcised, he already leaves the position of being a child and he is now considered ... as an adult,” Castro said. “If you are a circumcised male ... you should act as a grown-up man.”
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS