Ruben Enaje shows three-inch nail which he used yesterday on a Good Friday crucifixion re-enactment in San Pedro Cutud town, Pampanga province, north of Manila.
SAN FERNANDO: Catholic zealots in the Philippines re-enacted the last hours of Jesus Christ on Good Friday, whipping their backs and nailing themselves to crosses in a grisly Easter ritual that persists despite Church disapproval.
Foreign and local tourists flocked to the outskirts of the city of San Fernando, a 90-minute drive from Manila, to see the annual spectacle where a Christian “passion play” is taken to its blood-soaked extreme.
At least 18 men had nails driven through their hands and were hung up on crosses under the hot sun in vacant plots around the city.
Elsewhere, hooded men lashed their bloody backs with cloth and bamboo whips, doing penance for their sins while spraying onlookers with flecks of blood.
Devotees commit to undergo the mock crucifixion in exchange for a gift from God such as the healing of a sick loved one.
“I am used to it already,” said Alex Laranang, 58, who was nailed up for the 14th time.
Laranang, a short, sunburnt man who sells baked buns to bus passengers, said: “It is just like a needle going through my hand. After two days, I am ready to go back to work again.”
He said so far his suffering has been rewarded as his wife and children enjoy good health and he continues to make a decent living.
At least two of the men hung on crosses had to be carried away on stretchers after being taken down, but most managed to walk to a medical tent for treatment as Western tourists snapped pictures. Norwegian Charlotte Johanssen, 26, a Manila resident who was among the crowd of onlookers, said some of her visiting friends had found the sight too much to take.
“I have friends who felt sick to their stomachs and who got nauseated,” said Johanssen, who works for an aid group in the Philippine capital.
“There are those who get amazed. You can’t imagine how anyone can subject themselves to this kind of pain,” she said.
The mock crucifixions have been going on for decades despite official disapproval from the Philippines’ Catholic bishops.
“The bishops have been saying for a long time they disapprove of this. But people make such vows. They sacrifice themselves for others,” said Father Francis Lucas, executive director of the Philippine bishops’ media office.
“We have so many crosses to bear in life. We don’t need to bear a real one,” he said. He also warned against efforts to use the event to boost tourism, saying: “That is really wrong”. AFP
