19 penitents crucified in Pampanga

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga (AFP) – Victor showed no fear, smoking a cigarette, waiting in line for his turn on the cross.

But he cried out and openly wept as the 13-centimeter stainless-steel nails – pre-soaked in alcohol to disinfect them – were driven through his palms with the ordinary carpenter’s hammer.

Victor was one of at least 19 Filipinos who underwent ritual crucifixion on Good Friday in the northern village of Cutud, as part of a bloody annual spectacle that continues to shock tourists and outsiders in this devoutly Roman Catholic nation.

It was his 17th year imitating the Passion of Christ, and said he was doing it so his mother would recover from a chronic illness.

But there was also personal ambition in his pain. "In just two more years, I will be the one playing the Kristo," meaning he will get the coveted position of carrying the cross.

Nine men were crucified under the burning sun in Cutud village, while 10 others also underwent the same ordeal a few hours earlier in the nearby village of Santa Lucia.

In both villages, one man, designated as the Kristo carried a wooden cross to a hill, flanked by men dressed a Roman soldiers in a grim parade.

The crucifixions were accompanied by scores of magdarane – a local term for self-flagellants or hooded men, whipping their backs into a bloody tapestry in another imitation of Jesus Christ’s suffering.

This Good Friday practice has been going on for decades, spawning controversy and attracting hordes of foreign and local tourists.

However, the custom is not endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church and critics have charged that the whole affair is becoming a show for the tourists.

Lourdes Pangilinan, local tourism officer, said authorities were no longer allowing foreigners to take part after a British man, who was scheduled to be crucified last year, dropped out at the last minute.

Once on the hill, the men are placed upon three crosses and have nails driven through their palms. The crucified men are then allowed to remain hanging for about 10 minutes before they are taken down.

The men who undergo the crucifixion or the self-flagellation are doing it either in fulfillment of a promise they made to God or as penance for some misdeed. Many of them have gone through the ordeal numerous times.

Ruben Enaje, 46, the Kristo in Cutud who carried the cross and was nailed to it later, said he had been doing this for 15 years after God spared his life when he fell from a building.

Danilo Ramos, another one of the crucified men, said he had been doing this for 12 years already, since he was 15.

Ramos said he began after his mother was hospitalized due to a heart attack. "This is a vow from the soul," he said. He did not say if his suffering had led to his mother’s recovery.

In Cutud, stretchers were waiting to carry the men to a first aid station after they were taken off the cross. But in Santa Lucia, the men had to walk by themselves to a health center for post-crucifixion treatment.

For the hundreds of people who gathered in both Cutud and Santa Lucia, the spectacle was both shocking but had also been commercialized in some way.

Virgie Valencia, 65, a Manila resident, said she was disappointed by the noise of the crowd and all the vendors at the site hawking cold drinks, junk food and hats and fans.

"This is not solemn. This is not what I expected," she said.

However, she said the local townsfolk actually carrying out the re-enactment appeared to be sincere in their faith.

A German tourist, traveling with a group of friends, identifying himself only as Toby, appeared dissatisfied as well.

"I would have expected it to be gruesome. But it felt like it was just a big show," he said.

Another Westerner, clad in shorts and sunglasses, could be heard laughing, "hey, look at all the blood," as the flagellants’ whips splattered him and his Filipina girlfriend.

As the crowds dispersed, local children could be seen, scavenging the discarded whips as souvenirs, swinging the bloody flails at each other playfully.