So on Good Friday of Holy Week I went with some friends up to a small city called San Fernando in Pampanga. The Philippines is a country with a strong faith in Catholicism and on Good Friday in some towns people practice self-flagellation and even getting crucified as a way to show penitence to God. San Fernando is famous for the massive festival of people whipping themselves and it is one of the few places that people actually get crucified.
Before I describe that day I would like to mention that Pampanga is actually a province in the Philippines where a ton of tourists come every year. Pampanga has no beaches or beautiful landscape that I know of so I can only see three reasons why people would flock here. First, Pampanga is supposedly the center of Filipino cuisine and it is a place famous for its culinary tradition. I had lunch there and one of the friends I was with was born and raised in Pampanga so he showed us some authentic local food. I have to say it was quite different than other Filipino food I've had and it was delicious. The second reason why I think people come to Pampanga is to visit Angeles City which is located next to where a massive US Air Force base used to be. The US military officially left back in the early 1990s but the presence of the US military has had a lasting effect on Angeles City; namely that there are about 10,000 prostitutes in the city. The red light district of Angeles City is world famous and interesting in some ways but probably one of the sleaziest places I've ever been to in my life. For an America middle aged man bored with American girls, they can head to Angeles City and hook up with a Filipino girl that could be 15. I really hope the girls I saw were actually above 18 but you know never really know in these places. Aside from the food and prostitution, people come to San Fernando on Good Friday to see pious Catholics demonstrate their faith in God in a pretty gruesome way. I think the contrast is interesting.
So we arrived in San Fernando in the late morning and made our way to the center of the religious festivities. The place was packed with people and swarming with Germans. There were also tons of Americans, British, and Australians snapping pictures of Filipino guys ripping the flesh off their back in the name of the faith they hold so dear.
I am not so religious but I have respect for these guys. The fact that they destroy their body out of their love for God resonates with me a bit. Going to church every Sunday is clearly not for them to demonstrate their faith by whipping themselves until they pass out. As the guys walk and indiscriminately splatter blood on the bystanders the sun kept climbing high in the sky and cast down an overwhelming heat. Occasionally, the those self-flagellating would stop walking and another guy would come up behind them with a mallet embedded with broken glass. He would cut their back with it and I am not sure if it was in order to induce more bleeding or kill the nerves to help ease the pain but either way, it was pretty dramatic.
I could hear some old English ladies behind me commenting in the funny way English women do: “Oh my! This is disgusting!” I don't really know what they expected to see. I thought I would be more affected by seeing these guys but honestly it wasn't such a big deal for me. I mean it's not like I enjoy seeing people do that but I had a hard time having sympathy for the wounds these guys were self-inflicting on themselves. I mean it is kind of gross but I have a strong stomach for this kind of thing. Some people might be uncomfortable with this kind of religious violence and I am of course not a fan of religious violence against other people but in my opinion if their religious beliefs cause them to cause violence on themselves then I think that is totally appropriate even analogous somewhere.
After we had a fairly delicious lunch, we made our way to the area of the main event: live crucifixion.
There were so many people there and almost no shade. The sun was strong and I got completely sun burned. I tried not to complain too much since we came there to watch people practically kill themselves. I tried to put my sweaty discomfort in perspective. It took a long time for the guys to finally come. There were guys dressed up like Jesus being beaten up and dragged to the crosses by guys dressed up like Romans.
It was hard to get a good view because of just how many people were there. The first guy they crucified was probably the most dramatic. The “Romans” roughed him up a bit and laid him on the cross. They proudly held up the long nail they would use and they triumphantly raise the hammer each time they hammered a nail through his flesh. As he was hoisted up and limply hung there while he was frying in the oppressive sun, a woman dressed like the Virgin Mary came and delivered a heartfelt speech which I guess came from the Bible. I don't know since it was in Tagalog or Pampanga language.
As we were watching this spectacle the crowd never really took a solemn tone. There were ice cream salesmen milling around playing their familiar tune and people selling other candy and water. People were yelling and chanting at the “Jesus” as he hung there nailed to the cross. Most of Western tourists looked kind of shocked and gave off an air of “This is terrible, why would they people willingly do this to themselves?”
We watched a few guys get crucified, some cried out from the pain and others took it quietly with a straight face. When I see something like this I try to be analytical and find something profound in what I am seeing. Again, I feel like tourism dilutes any meaningful place or event into vulgarity. I remember when I was in Kyoto I went with my Chinese friend to Ryōan-ji which is a famous Zen rock garden. Anybody that is familiar with Zen Buddhism would know about this garden.
The garden has 15 boulders and is bedded with raked gravel. It is pretty tiny but the place was completely packed with tourists. My Chinese friend is one who was really interested in this place from books he's read but he was pissed off that it was impossible to appreciate it because of all the tourists. The once meaningful place became just another entry in a tourists photo gallery to prove that they had been to the place.
I feel like San Fernando is treated the same way. It seemed like the majority of people really were just there to watch the spectacle because of its uniqueness but they didn't really care about the actual meaning behind it. I can't say I went there with the intention of appreciating it in a religious way but the tourists ruin it for everyone else who might have actually cared about it. For me, the whole event took another turn entirely. The pain and anguish of those that subjected themselves was not lost on me and I won't take the conventional liberal point of view that condemns religion as a negative force driving people to destructive behavior. I recognize the need of violence of gore in human society. We cannot eradicate violence of society because it is part of the human condition. It is not archaic or stone-age behavior for people to crucify themselves, destroy their bodies, or engage in fight each other to the death. I am not condoning this behavior, my opinion on whether or not people should do that is irrelevant. The fact is that it is part of human nature and I think we should learn to empathize with these occurrences. At least in the Philippines this practice is publicly accepted and so can be conducted in a fairly responsible way. I don't find this to be a degrading aspect of society but one that enriches it. In my opinion, the chief vehicle degrading society would be the proliferation of technology and cosmetic surgery across the world.
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