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Pasyon, the.

The Pasyon is a retelling of the Passion of Christ. Readings and performances of the pasyon text are widespread in the Philippines, where they have synthesized indigenous religious performativity with  Catholicism and political and social activism. There are three pasyon texts, the first of which was published in 1704 by the Filipino poet Gaspar Aquino de Belen. The pasyon is performed during Lent in cities and villages throughout the Philippines, often by unskilled pious actors and paid for as an act of piety by affluent patrons.

Historically, the pasyon has served as a symbolic lens through which political events and figures have been interpreted. In the late colonial period, during which nationalist speech was curtailed by the Spanish government and Catholic Church, the pasyon narrative of the suffering of Christ was imbued with layers of nationalist, anticlerical and anticolonial meaning. Revolutionary leaders were associated with Christ while peasants and nationalists were expected to be like his disciples, giving up their worldly lives in pursuit of independence. The execution of nationalist author  José Rizal was remembered in the performance of the pasyon , where Rizal’s “martyrdom” echoed Christ’s death. Over a half century later, the assassination of  Benigno Aquino Jr. would have the same effect.

Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 (Manila: Ateneo University Press, 1979).

Mellie Leandicho Lopez, A Handbook of Philippine Folklore (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press, 2006).

Image Credits:

"Pasyon," Arnel E. Hutalla (Holy Week, 2011, Macalelon, Quezon ).

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Joseph Scalice

historian. wordsmith. wanderer.

Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution revisited

As an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley in the early aughts, I was, like most scholars of Philippine history, deeply inspired by Reynaldo Ileto’s classic 1979 work, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. In my first semester as a freshman, I wrote a research paper on the life of Macario Sakay, drawing heavily from Ileto’s ideas and material.

In late 2004, I first wrote down some stray notes expressing this unease —

This work left me feeling unsettled and critical.

A sentence in Ileto’s concluding paragraph [to an article of Ileto’s, “Rizal and the Underside of Philippine History”] clarified for me the unease that I had felt throughout the article: “These leaders [Lantayug, et. al.] have, until recently at least, always belonged to the ‘dark underside’ of the struggle for independence dominated by such ilustrado notables as Quezon, Roxas and Osmena.” It seems clear to me that the division between an ilustrado led resistance and a ‘dark underside’ is a false dichotomy. There are a multitude of underside resistances, many of them with a very different self-concept from the one put forward by Ileto. It would appear that in a attempting to ‘retrieve’ history from below, Ileto has manufactured a monolith: a Filipino ‘underclass’ that conceives of power and loób in terms that sound remarkably like those used by Benedict Anderson in his “Idea of Power in Javanese Culture.” Where in this underside would Ileto fit the Union Obrera Democratica, the first Filipino labor movement, which was forming at this time, was composed entirely of working class Filipinos and whose perceptions were sharply different from that of Ileto’s underclass? Where to put Isabelo de los Reyes’ and Gregorio Aglipay’s Iglesia Filipina Independiente? Do Macario Sakay and the Republika ng Katagalugan really fit Ileto’s description? It would involve an extensive investigation of sources, but it seems likely that Ileto’s ‘underside to Philippine history’ was actually a minority of lower class resistance movements. This brings me to a second objection: underside? Lower class? Ileto’s article really has no definition of class. What groups constitute the subject of his investigation? It would seem that Ileto has merely taken the ilustrado concept of ‘pobres y ignorantes‘ as his starting point and has attempted to listen to this ilustrado defined group and to recover their voice. It seems doubtful that the Philippine peasantry and incipient working class defined themselves in these terms. An investigation that started by examining the historical relations of production and exploitation might have given much needed definition to Ileto’s concept of ‘underside.’

I also posed the question —

Both Ileto and Vicente Rafael have explored the way that Latin and Spanish words like ego sum, Verbo, potencia, Espiritu, and Personas can become reified and take on bizarre, unintended meanings through colonial pretensions of untranslatability and ‘underside’ reappropriation. Is it not odd then that Ileto should do something similar with loób, kapangyarihan, and liwanag? Does this not open the door for bizarre and unintended meanings through academic pretensions of untranslatability and scholastic reappropriation?

I did not turn my attention to these questions until I began work on my Master’s thesis at Berkeley in late 2007. I determined that I would undertake a careful re-examination of Ileto’s work and attempt to conduct my proposed “extensive investigation of sources.” I went back over my old notes and posted them, in November 2007, on an older blog that I maintained at the time, under the title Notes on Ileto’s “Rizal and the Underside of Philippine History.” While the site no longer exists, the Waybackmachine maintains a copy from December 2007.

In 2008, Ileto responded to my post and, while the website containing the response is now lost to the sands of time, Von Totanes in a chapter published in 2011 documented the exchange.

In December 2009, I completed my masters thesis, “Pasyon, Awit, Legend: Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution Revisited, a critique.”

The work attempted to do two things: to document what I considered the marked limitations of Ileto’s answer to his critical question, and to formulate an alternative methodology to answer it adequately.

I presented my findings on June 18, 2010 before a conference hosted by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, Engaging the Classics in Malay and Southeast Asian Studies Conference . Over the course of the conference, Bomen Guillermo and I spoke extensively, and discovered that we were addressing ourselves to similar issues in regard to translation in Ileto’s work. Guillermo’s ideas were published in Philippine Studies in 2014.  He wrote

Guillermo carried out a sustained and careful examination of Ileto’s nontranslation of loób in his work and the implications of this for the plausibility of Ileto’s argument.  In a footnote to Guillermo noted, “Indeed, although Scalice has devoted much more time developing a critical Marxist perspective on Ileto’s work, I have been surprised by our convergence of views independently arrived at while using quite different tools.” I can only express a similar feeling of pleasant surprise at this marked convergence.

My attention, however, turned to my doctoral dissertation on the Communist Parties of the Philippines in the 1960s and early 1970s. My thesis on Ileto gathered dust for several years.

In 2017, having completed my dissertation, I revisited the old project, rewriting my thesis into two articles, effectively reworking and separating its two aspects — criticism and alternative methodology. These parts were published in 2018 as “ Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution Revisited, a Critique ,” SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 33, no. 1 (2018): 29–58, and “ Pamitinan and Tapusi: Using the Carpio Legend to Reconstruct Lower-Class Consciousness in the Late Spanish Philippines ,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 2, no. June (2018): 250–76.

gusali | building

SaMgaKukoNgLiwanag TagalogLiterature

Ileto’s problematic class categories

Pasyonandrevolution Philippinehistory Reynaldoileto

The Glocal Filipin@s and the Pasyon Through the Lens of Ethnicity

• First Online: 30 January 2024

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• Ma. Marilou S. Ibita 5  

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This chapter continues the discussion on the pasyon, the non-stop chanting of the passion of Christ during Holy Week in the Philippines. It engages the ongoing debate regarding the question of priority between the text and the performance of the pasyon. It posits that from a theological-pastoral perspective, the binary approach is unnecessary and unhelpful given the participation of the global and local Filipin@s in the world community where ethnic hate proliferates. Instead, there is a need to recognize, challenge, and correct the ethnic-based denigration of the Hudyo (Jews) in the theological-pastoral language of the pasyon toward a more ethnicity-inclusive theological-pastoral approach that shows solidarity with the poor and outcasts rather than the ongoing denigration of the Jews. The chapter’s position is argued following these three sections: (1) the diverging views on the text and the performance of the pasyon, (2) problematizing the theological-pastoral language of the pasyon through the lens of ethnicity, and (3) recontextualizing the pasyon for an ethnicity-inclusive theological-pastoral solidarity with the glocal Filipin@s.

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Pasyon or pasion are written interchangeably in the literature. I will use pasyon in this work and employ pasion when used in citations.

See Agence France-Presse, “‘Pasyon’ Now Online,” ABS-CBN News, April 18, 2011, https://news.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/04/18/11/pasyon-now-online; Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, “Pasyon,” Visita Iglesia (blog), March 10, 2017, https://cbcpnews.net/visitaiglesia/pasyon/ .

Julius Bautista, The Way of the Cross: Suffering Selfhoods in the Roman Catholic Philippines (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2019), 28, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824881047 .

Bautista, 1.

Rene B. Javellana, “Pasyon Genealogy and Annotated Bibliography,” Philippine Studies 31, no. 4 (1983): 451.

Javellana, 453–459.

Javellana, 451, 458–459.

Mariano Pilapil, Awit at Salaysay Ng Pasiong Mahal Ni Hesukristong Panginoon Natin Sukat Ipag-Alab Ng Puso Ng Sinumang Babasa (Pasiong Henesis) (Manila: Ignacio Luna and Sons, 1949). The authorial attribution to Pilapil is found on the “Pahiwatig” (p. 2) with a claim that the text is found to have no error in faith. However, see Javellana, “Pasyon,” 462 which notes that the authorial link to Fr. Mariano Pilapil is an erroneous presupposition.

Vitaliano R. Gorospe, “Sources of Filipino Moral Consciousness,” Philippine Studies 25, no. 3 (1977): 278–301, 291.

Javellana, “Pasyon,” 462; Doreen Fernandez, “Philippine Theater and the Medieval World: Notes for Further Research,” Philippine Studies 44, no. 4 (1996): 533.

Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines 1840-1910 (Manila: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1979), 13–14.

Ileto, 254.

Bautista, Way of the Cross , 10; Bautista was referring to these works: Ileto, Pasyon ; John D. Blanco, Frontier Constitutions: Christianity and Colonial Empire in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009); Filomeno Aguilar, Clash of the Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1998); Vicente Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).

Joseph Scalice, “Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution Revisited, a Critique,” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 33, no. 1 (2018): 49–50.

Scalice, 43.

Bautista, Way of the Cross , 10.

Bautista, 31–45.

Bautista, 31–32.

Bautista, 32.

Bautista, 33.

Bautista, 35.

Bautista, 35–36.

Bautista, 39–42.

Bautista, 34.

Bautista, 37.

See, for instance, Rene B. Javellana, “Gaspar Aquino de Belen’s Poetic Universe: A Key to His Metaphorical Theology,” Philippine Studies 38, no. 1 (1990): 28–44.

See Zaphyr Iral, Ronald Mendoza, and Alvin Perez, “Will the Pasyon Survive?,” Philstar.com , accessed May 27, 2023, https://www.philstar.com/news-commentary/2014/04/15/1312955/will-pasyon-survive . They report that apart from the five traditional pasyon tunes, the organizers and youth participants also introduced other tunes based on “Sta. Clarang Pinung-Pino,” “De Colores,” “My heart will go on,” Voltes V theme song, and even a rap version at various times with mixed reviews.

See Bautista, Way of the Cross , 7.

Bautista, 38–39.

Bautista, 40–41.

Bautista, 40.

Bautista, 41–42.

Bautista, 43.

Ileto, Pasyon , 254.

Bautista, Way of the Cross , 9.

See Agence France-Presse, “Pasyon”; Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, “Pasyon”. For the discussion of OFW and passion rituals yet without mentioning the pasyon , see Bautista, Way of the Cross , 96–105.

Scalice, “Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon,” 43.

See Pilapil, Awit . To facilitate the reference and analysis, the first number refers to the page and the second to the stanza number on that page, separated by a column. Manual counting in the pdf version was used for the statistics mentioned here.

Pilapil, 81.

See Scalice, “Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon,” 54, n. 13; William Peterson, “Three Tagalog Sinakulos: The Repertoire and the Scenario,” in Places for Happiness: Community, Self, and Performance in the Philippines , ed. William Peterson (Hawaii: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016), 29–30, https://doi.org/10.21313/hawaii/9780824851637.003.0002 .

Pilapil, Awit , 185.

See Jeremy Cohen, Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen (Oxford University Press, 2007).

For the issue of the use of the adjective “perfidious” for the Jews found in the Roman Catholic Good Friday liturgy and its removal in as well as the complication brought about by the renewed Good Friday prayer for the Jews by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, see Marianne Moyaert and Didier Pollefeyt, “Israel and the Church: Fulfillment Beyond Supersessionism,” in Never Revoked: Nostra Aetate As Ongoing Challenge for Jewish-Christian Dialogue , ed. Marianne Moyaert and Didier Pollefeyt (Leuven/ Walpole, MA; Grand Rapids, MI: Peeters/Eerdmans, 2010), 159–183.

Jessica A. Boon, “Violence and the ‘Virtual Jew’ in Castilian Passion Narratives, 1490s–1510s,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 8, no. 1 (January 2, 2016): See, https://doi.org/10.1080/17546559.2015.1077987; for the role of mendicant orders during this time, see Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, NY): Cornell University Press, 1982).

Rene B. Javellana, “The Sources of Gaspar Aquino de Belen’s Pasyon,” Philippine Studies 32, no. 3 (1984): 305.

Javellana, 310.

See Javellana, 311.

See Boon, “Violence.” On the history of Christians calling the Jews ‘perfidious’ in the Good Friday prayers, see footnote 45.

Rene B. Javellana, “Pasyon Genealogy and Annotated Bibliography,” Philippine Studies 31, no. 4 (1983): 451–467, 451.

See, for instance, Rex Fortes, “‘The Judeans’ for Οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι? Contested Ethnicity in the Fourth Gospel,” 2022; Wally V. Cirafesi, “John within Judaism: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Shaping of Jesus-Oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel,” in John within Judaism (Brill, 2021), https://brill.com/display/title/60162 .

See Second Vatican Council, “Nostra Aetate,” accessed June 13, 2023, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html .

See Minerva Generalao, “Time to Check Pabasa for Anti-Semitic Content, Says Caloocan Bishop,” INQUIRER.net , April 13, 2017, https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/888866/time-to-check-pabasa-for-anti-semitic-content-says-caloocan-bishop .

Ileto, Pasyon , 11.

See Anna Foa, “Limpieza versus Mission: Church, Religious Orders, and Conversion in the Sixteenth Century,” in Friars and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance , ed. Steven McMichael and Susan Myers, vol. 2, The Medieval Franciscan (The Netherlands: Brill, 2004), 299–311, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047400219_019; Maria Pilar Lorenzo, “Jewish Migration in the Philippines,” in Radical Definitions: State - Society - Religion , ed. Xaver Hergenröther, Oana Ursulesku, and Dana Bădulescu, vol. 3, Seggau School of Thought (Graz: Grazer Universitätsverlag, 2018), 29–36.

For the difficulty in settling the Jewish refugees in Mindanao, see Frank Ephraim, “The Mindanao Plan: Political Obstacles to Jewish Refugee Settlement,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 20, no. 3 (2006): 410–436, https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcl020 .

Rodel Rodis, “Philippines: A Jewish Refuge from the Holocaust,” INQUIRER.Net, April 13, 2013, https://globalnation.inquirer.net/72279/philippines-a-jewish-refuge-from-the-holocaust .

For example, see Kelly W. Sundberg, Lauren M. Mitchell, and Dan Levinson, “Health, Religiosity and Hatred: A Study of the Impacts of COVID-19 on World Jewry,” Journal of Religion and Health 62, no. 1 (February 1, 2023): 428–443, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01692-5 .

See Boon, “Violence”; Sylvia Tomasch, “Postcolonial Chaucer and the Virtual Jew,” in The Postcolonial Middle Ages , ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2000), 243–260, https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107342_14 .

See Joshua Uyheng and Kathleen M. Carley, “Bots and Online Hate During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Case Studies in the United States and the Philippines,” Journal of Computational Social Science 3, no. 2 (November 1, 2020): 445–468, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-020-00087-4 .

Boon, “Violence,” 117. For further discussion on responding to the challenge of Anti-Semitism, see Mary Doak, A Prophetic, Public Church: Witness to Hope Amid the Global Crises of the Twenty-First Century (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2020), 39–74.

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Ibita, M.M.S. (2024). The Glocal Filipin@s and the Pasyon Through the Lens of Ethnicity. In: Lledo Gomez, C., Brazal, A.M., Ibita, M.M.S. (eds) 500 Years of Christianity and the Global Filipino/a. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47500-9_5

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Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution, Popular. Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

[compte-rendu].

• Référence bibliographique

Camagay Maria-Luisa. Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution, Popular. Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 . In: Archipel , volume 23, 1982. pp. 208-210.

www.persee.fr/doc/arch_0044-8613_1982_num_23_1_1738

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Reynaldo Clemena Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution', Popular Movements in the Philippines,. 1840-1910, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Metro Manila, 1979.

If there is an aspect sadly neglected or rarely studied the Filipino struggle for independence, it might as well be Filipino masses idea of a revolution. Filipino historians recognize the active participation of the masses in the Revolution but hardly is there mention of their idea of a revolution. It is this lack of information on folk perceptions of western concepts like nationalisme and independence that makes Ileto's work invaluable. Ileto shows to us in his book how the peasants* perception of independence was to a great extent inspired by the Pasyon.

The Pasyon, an epic poem popularized during the Spanish period narrates the life of Jesus Christ -his birth, death and resurrection. It likewise suggests the course of universal history as it describes the Creation of the World, the Fall of Man and the Last Judgement. According to Ileto, the Pasyon also provided «powerful images of transition from one state or era to another». He cites the tran- ition from darkness to light, despair to hope, misery to ■ salvation, death to life,

Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

Reynaldo clemeña ileto.

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

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Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution Revisited, a Critique

Reynaldo Ileto’s 1979 work Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910, attempted to reconstruct the categories of perception of “the masses” by using the religious performance of the suffering and death of Christ, the pasyon, as source material. Critical re-examination of his work reveals that the attempt was deeply flawed. It engaged with the pasyon as a literary text, ignored the significance of its performance and treated it in an ahistorical manner. An attentiveness to performance demonstrates that the pasyon was a cross-class and linguistically specific phenomenon. This insight dramatically attenuates the argumentative force of Ileto’s claim to provide an historical understanding of the consciousness of the masses and their participation in revolution.

Related Papers

Jim Richardson

Julius Bautista

The subject of this paper is the politics of ‘use’ and ‘misuse’ of religious iconography during popular uprisings in the Philippines. It will discuss the ways in which religious icons,specifically the Santo Niño and Our Lady of EDSA, are co-opted for specific political and social agendas. “Rebellion” is broadly defined here as the combined action of a large group of people against what they see as the oppressive and hegemonic force that prevents the full enactment of their common interest. The concern here is to describe how mass action incorporates the imagery of divine personages so that revolutions are, simultaneously, acts of worship and rebellion. This paper asks the following question: What are the processes by which religious iconographies contextualise rebellion in the Philippines? What are the circumstances that led to a repetition of such events throughout the history of the country? And finally, under whose authority are rebellions and protests in the Philippines labelled and packaged as ‘holy’ and ‘divine’? This paper will argue that the ‘holiness’ of religiously inspired mass uprisings is contingent upon specific acts of legitimisation, ‘packaging’ and semantic contestation.

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Before the celebrated EDSA people power revolutions in recent Philippine history, Apolinario “Hermano Puli” de la Cruz founded the Cofradia de San José as early as the 19th century which laid the seminal principles of the Filipino struggle for freedom and eventual democracy. The Cofradia, albeit berated by the Church and Spanish rulers, has become the emblem of the untiring search for authentic freedom against foreign rule and bourgeois leadership. This search for freedom is said to have been motivated by the rituals practiced by the Katagalugan (Southern Luzon Region) peasantry. These rituals, of which the most criticized is the Pasyon Pilapil, were informally documented through popular songs, poetry, and readings. Condemned as abominable and heretical, the suppression of the Cofradia and its rituals led to the brutal persecution of Hermano Puli and the massacre of hundreds of members of the Cofradia in 1841. This study aims to reflect on Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Rebolusyon from an existentialist perspective, in particular, Soren Kierkegaard’s notions of “faith” and “suffering”, in order to philosophically explore the seminal thoughts that stimulated the late 19th-century Philippine uprisings against the colonial Spain. Ileto contends that the brotherhood’s teachings followed a tripartite structure of Dalit (light); as it begins with the brightness (innocence at the Garden of Eden), followed by a darkness (Christ's passion and death), towards the luminous glory (of the Resurrection). This gradation, consciously and unconsciously, influenced the Katipunan that played a huge role in the Filipino struggle for independence at the turn of that century. It is a factor that has influenced the present day concern for empowerment especially for those people standing at the social margins. Key words: Hermano Puli, Pasyon, kalayaan, loob, leap of faith, suffering

In: Judith Schlehe / Evamaria Sandkühler (eds.), Religion, Tradition and the Popular. Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014, 75-111

Peter J. Bräunlein

"The social sciences are enmeshed with their own subject area in complex ways. Social-scientific discourses have an impact on the self-perception of tradition, authenticity and identity in the broader society. In the following sections, I shall trace various scholarly discourses on Filipino tradition, national identity, and popular Christianity. Hence religion functions either as obstacle to or source of national identity. From the post-Second World War years until today, the intellectual attitude towards Christianity varied considerably: outright refusal of the oppressor’s religion by left-wing nationalists, reappraisal of a revolutionary »Passion Catholicism« by the »history from below« discourse, attempts of reconstructing pre-Christian animism, Austronesian cosmology and/or mystic-messianic nationalism as the true religion of »the« Filipino people, or post-nationalist appreciation of religious »creolization« and »hybridity«. Such discourses are inseparable from the political development after independence and the postcolonial struggle over intellectual self-determination. This chapter examines various attempts of Filipino intellectuals to contribute to the collective identity of their nation. As will be shown below, over a long period of time this ambition could be achieved only by selecting and defining certain essentials that make the desired collective »good to think«. Thus, the scholarly endeavour is aimed at compensating the loss of a supposed cultural authenticity of the past, destroyed by colonialism. In their neo-Marxian struggle for a classless society of »the people«, in their post-Rousseauistic attempts of re-constructing an »imagined community«, or in their recent esteem of cultural difference and »hybridity«, historians and socio-cultural anthropologists unavoidably take positions in the political arena."

Alessandra Jeanne Carls

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

Filomeno Aguilar

Regarded as a classic in Philippine historiography, Teodoro Agoncillo's The Revolt of the Masses published in 1956 is examined to understand the author's explanation of what made “the masses” revolutionary. The study finds a profound incoherence: Agoncillo posited literacy and political consciousness in explaining the explosion in the Katipunan's membership, but throughout the book the dominant characterization of the masses was one of ignorance, gullibility, impulsiveness, irrationality, and treachery. The study explains this contradiction in light of Agoncillo's blending of literature and history, the educated elite’s unquestioned assumptions about ignorance, and the ethos of the postwar “proletarian” writer.

… Journal of Third …

Nepo Malaluan

Born of the People: Luis Taruc and Peasant Ideology in Phillipine Revolutionary Politics, Histoire Sociale / Social History

Keith T Carlson

Luis Taruc was one of the twentieth century’s most prominent peasant revolutionaries. His death in May 2005 at the age of 91 is cause for reflection upon the factors that contributed to his becoming one of the most tragic figures in recent Philippine history, despite his ongoing popularity among the peasants of Luzon. This study examines oral traditions, contrasts Socialist and Communist song lyrics and theatrical productions, and engages hitherto overlooked peasant beliefs in reincarnation to cast new light on the schism in leftist politics in the Philippines in the mid-twentieth century. The Communist meta-narrative ultimately failed to resonate with Filipino peasants, not only because of the military and economic power of the United States and Philippine Republican governments, but because Taruc (to the chagrin and frustration of his comrades-turned-adversaries in the Communist Party) engaged and ultimately embodied certain peasant counter micro-narratives.

Using historical approach and personal biography, this paper investigates the role of religion in Philippine politics. In their struggle for national and social liberation in the Philippines, Filipino Marxists, Christians, and nationalist educators work in coalition with the broad masses of the people to educate and work for cooperation, mutual care, justice and peace. (pp. 217-223)

Rolando M Gripaldo

The author analyzes albeit philosophically three basic terms which have become controversial in Philippine revolutionary historiography today. These terms are “Philippine,” “revolution,” and “Philippine Revolution.”

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Senakulo: A Complete Guide to the Filipino Passion Play of Jesus Christ

Lent marks the beginning of the Easter holiday. For 40 days, Christians all over the world commemorate the time Jesus spent fasting in the desert. Today, it’s a season of reflection and preparation and sacrifice and celebration. 

In America, Christinas have their own set of traditions to follow during the  Lenten  season, like no meat on Fridays, giving up indulgences, and doing more things that make you uncomfortable. This is a time to expand your spirituality, to test yourself, and in some cultures, to perform. 

Senakulo is a dramatic performance to commemorate the passion and death of Jesus Christ in the  Philippines , the modernized versions of the Senakulo run for only one or two hours [1]. They may be presented in different types of venues: on the traditional stage, singing on the streets (otherwise known as pasyon), in a chapel, in a large room, or out in the open. Comedy, romance, and special effects may be incorporated in the plays. Also, the modern versions of the Senakulos tend to focus not on Christ’s submissiveness, but on his reason and resolve in bravely standing up for the oppressed or the downtrodden against their oppressors, perhaps suggesting how current problems may be resolved.

Here are the elements of the Senakulo and how the plays have evolved through the eras.

Pasyon 

Pabasa,  or “reading” in English, is the act of chanting the lines of an early 16th-century epic poem, Pasyon, which narrates the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ [2]. It is usually done in groups where they take turns in reading.This tradition is typically performed on a proscenium-type stage with painted cloth or paper backdrops that are called telon. It takes at least eight nights, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, to present the play. Christ is traditionally presented as meek and humble, submitting lamb-like to his fate in obedience to authority. 

However, modern Senakulos tend to focus not on Christ’s submissiveness, but rather on his reason and resolve in courageously standing up for the unfortunate against their oppressors, suggesting how current problems may be resolved. In urban areas, there are developed versions of the Senakulo that run for only one or two hours [3]. They may be presented in different types of locale: on the traditional stage, on the streets, in a chapel, or out in the open. Comedy, courtship, and special effects may be incorporated.

Street Senakulos

Just because the Senakulo isn’t on a traditional stage doesn’t mean it isn’t a significant performance. Whether the performance is minutes, hours or days, the Senakulo is filled with preparation. The scripts draw from both the Bible and the folk tradition, while the costumes and scenery are closer to Hispanic iconography, instead of historical realism. This is especially true of the more recent productions, which are done by professional theatre companies. Regardless of the version of play stages, Jesus is depicted as a humble man, taking up the ultimate sacrifice of death in his abounding obedience. 

Devout locals take this lesson to mean that it is important for Christians to take suffering in stride, just like Christ did. The routine of the reenactment has not changed, but its presentation is infused with a fresh flavor to reach the modern-world absorbed consciousness of the new generation.

Senakulo in the city of Manila is an occasion that signifies the Holy Week and is kept with great piety and pageantry.

During the Manila Senakulo, one can see rituals that are derived from Christ's suffering, passion and death. These interesting reenactments are the passion processions that draw a large crowd that tries to identify the sufferings of Christ 2,000 years ago. The reenactment is done through narrative recitation or role-playing. Everyone in the neighborhood eagerly awaits for the procession to pass by. The street Senakulo in Manila is another form of penance where the people walk alongside the procession. It is now faster paced,  lively and richer in music . 

The procession and enactment is interesting to see as the endeavor is to know what happened in the past and keep it contemporary.

The Philippines is the largest Christian country in Asia, which makes Holy Week one of the most important religious seasons of the year. It is composed of Palm Sunday, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday, and Easter Sunday. In the Philippines, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are declared as national holidays.

The first night of this multi-night show is allotted for the presentation of people behind the tradition. And the actual play begins with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

These shows   teach the values of sacrifice and suffering as the values illustrate the glory of Christ exemplified by His resurrection [4]. 

The Holy Week is an awaited holiday, especially in  Manila , as it is packed with a lot of activities that are held in  churches  and town plaza. The foreign and the local tourists can witness the Senakulo in Manila that is held in March/ April. The tourists would find the Senakulo in Manila has been absorbed into the local culture and is practiced with great warmth and intensity.

Whether you are Christian or not, if you’re traveling to the Philippines during the Lenten season, you should check out if your area has a Senakulo. Tradition is what keeps culture alive. Learning about what and how different parts of the world celebrate holidays like Lent are an insight into how they are as a community, a culture. 

Buying Guide

Looking for must-have products before attending your first Senakulo?   B&H  sells the sleek, eco-friendly Paper Shoot Paper Camera. This DIY digital point and shoot camera is compact and allows you to take photos and videos that can be digitized online.

Book your trip in time for the next Senakulo through   Travelocity .

Of course if you’re unable to make it to Manila, the least you could do is incorporate this rich-in-history city into your own home.   iCanvas  sells a beautiful canvas map of the city, ranging in sizes from 8x12 to 40x60.

What’s Senakulo without a rosary? Pray with one from   Crosses and Medals . We recommend the St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Birthstone Rosary. While you’re at it, check out the leather-bound Bible sold at   christianbook.com . 

External references

University of Hawai'i Press

Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

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Understanding folk religiosity in the philippines.

1. Introduction

(3) the pervasive beliefs, rituals, and values of a society, a kind of civil religion of the public; (4) an amalgam of esoteric beliefs and practices differing from the common or civil religion but usually located in the lower strata of society; it includes esoteric forms of healing, predictions, phrenology, palm reading, astrology, newspaper and magazines astrological forecasts; (5) the religion of a subclass or minority group in a culture; (6) the religion of the masses in opposition to the religion of sophisticated, discriminatory, and learned within a society.

2. Major Religious Influences in Philippine Folk Religion

3. folk religiosity in the millenarian movements, 4. folk religiosity in fiestas and holy week celebrations, 5. folk religiosity in the filipino’s ordinary life.

If we are serious about Jesus, we should be serious about the people he loves—the poor, the ordinary people. If we are serious about the ordinary people, especially the poor, then we should also take their way of praying seriously. We should take their way of connecting to the Divine as seriously as we take our own way of connecting to the Divine.

…at the base of Filipino folk religion is the prevailing belief in, and the deep fear of, supernatural creatures that live and alongside humans. Placating or avoiding various forms of spirits and witches is a major preoccupation of most Filipinos, whether in the rural areas, in the towns proper or in the cities. All types of misfortune, tragedy, disaster, accidents, illness and death are believed to be caused by supernatural beings.

6. The Function of Filipino Folk Religiosity

Folk religion consists thus of religious behavior that, through historical inheritance, belongs to the cultural identity of a folk community. Its importance is that it creates a unity between folk culture and the Christian faith, as can be clearly seen in former mission territories.

This illustrates the meaning of habits or customs: that they are symbolic forms through which one expresses oneself with one’s own cultural language. Customs—religious customs included–are a second nature, a cultural nature. They form a second spontaneity in emotion, expression and devotion.

Although the official Church today concurs with this fundamental harmony between folk Catholicism and the cultural values, it also thinks that the proper attitude towards such practices is one of critical respect, encouragement, and renewal. There is a need to foster these popular religious practices in such a way that they do not become distortions of religion or remain at the level of superficial forms of worship but become rather true expressions of faith. To this end, we must have the courage to correct what leads to fanaticism or maintains people’s infantile in their faith. ( De Mesa 2007, pp. 60–61 )

7. Conclusions

Conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Macaranas, J.R.G. Understanding Folk Religiosity in the Philippines. Religions 2021 , 12 , 800. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100800

Macaranas JRG. Understanding Folk Religiosity in the Philippines. Religions . 2021; 12(10):800. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100800

Macaranas, Juan Rafael G. 2021. "Understanding Folk Religiosity in the Philippines" Religions 12, no. 10: 800. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100800

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[OPINION] Appreciating the Filipino identity through our literature and culture

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Every Filipino has memorized “Lupang Hinirang.” This is mostly by singing and not by reciting it like prose or a poem.

During our school days, when our teachers ask us to write the lyrics down, one would always hear students humming the tune. Teachers would stop them, saying that a Filipino should know the lyrics by heart, soul, and mind without having to hum the tune. We can’t help it especially that we Filipinos have been blessed with a deep love for music.

Oftentimes we watch interviews of fellow Filipinos blundering at the lyrics. We sometimes laugh and feel silly for them.

These blunders also happen during international boxing competitions when our artist chokes under pressure and we can’t help but facepalm ourselves over it.

We have always sung “Lupang Hinirang” since elementary, and it seems a bit far-fetched when we see other Filipinos forgetting lyrics that they have learned since Grade 1. But in recent events, it is not only the lyrics that we have forgotten but also the nationalistic identity that the lyrics and our schools have tried to mold.

From reciting the Panatang Makabayan and Panunumpa sa Watawat ng Pilipinas during flag ceremonies, our education system has been dedicated to shaping a nationalistic mindset. Another such feat in this endeavor is the tradition of Buwan ng Wika (language month) every August, which celebrates our literature, history, and culture through balagtasan, pageantry, essay, and other forms of performances. (READ: The Buwan ng Wike debate: Do we celebrate local languages or dialects? ) 

Although nowadays, we have been lingering far from the goal of imbuing a nationalistic mindset. We are under attack from the inside.

Recently, the decision of the Supreme Court to have Panitikan and Filipino as optional subjects in college entails that our study and appreciation of literature ends in high school. (READ:  Want to read more Filipino literature? Here’s where to start )

Sadly, due to the lack of resources, most high schools only delve on 4 of Philippines’ major literary works. When a Filipino who grows up in our education system only knows Ibong Adarna , Florante at Laura , Noli Me Tangere , and El Filibusterismo  – and only those 4 – do we begin to see that we will fail in promoting ourselves as a culture with art and literature; when we, in fact, have a larger pool of writers such as Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose, Paz Marquez Benitez, Lualhati Bautista, and many more contemporary writers that Panitikan classes ought to cover. 

Another decision by lawmakers that also falls short in ensuring a nationalistic mindset among Filipino students is the mandatory Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) . The support of lawmakers in making the ROTC mandatory, in my opinion, does not foster patriotism nor the sense of duty, but rather only forced discipline and obedience.

I remember my citizen army training (CAT) in high school only as a playground of power and forced discipline, without a sense of duty to anyone but the commanding officer.

In shaping the Filipino people, we must devote ourselves to our studies and the appreciation of history, culture, and literature, rather than a flurry of commands.

In fostering our national identity, we must be wary of how we handle our educational system. Being a Filipino does not end with preferring English over Filipino, nor choosing hamburgers over sinigang, but rather ends when we have forgotten that we have our own literature, culture, and heritage to the point where we abandon it; that we force the people to love the nation rather than foster an appreciation.

In the memory of Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, and all other heroes who have died in service to our country do we strengthen our identity as a nation.

The lines of “Lupang Hinirang” is a promise carried by every Filipino that we’ll stand and never be again subjected to anyone in the face of invaders. It is also a way to show the reverence that we hold for our majestic country of more than 7,600 islands filled with beauty. (READ: The problem with the lack of nationalism )

In the hopes of fulfilling a promise to our country and to our ancestors who have again fought tirelessly do we rise up and take a stand; especially now when our political and sovereign claims are being contested , and our fellowmen are deprived of their rights to enjoy the freedoms we have long fought for. – Rappler.com

Gillian Reyes is a registered librarian who works at the  University of the Philippines Diliman. He often writes stories for children, and hopes to build a library for kids someday.

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