Saints and sinners

It’s no doubt a painful and bloody sacrifice, having oneself nailed on the cross, but perhaps for the devotees, it’s the only way to salve one’s conscience, although I don’t know for sure.

What’s clear is that in this nation of 116 million, there’s no lack of rituals during Holy Week, especially on Good Friday.

Men – young and old – would choose to have themselves nailed on the cross like Jesus himself; village folks walk hundreds of meters in processions, from the golden hour all the way to the night, to bring life-sized rebultos of Jesus, Mary and the saints to the town chapel or the church.

We are no doubt a predominantly Christian country, with Catholics comprising some 90 percent of the population.

It was the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of Spain, who first attempted to Christianize us when he landed in Cebu in 1521. Thus, in 2021, the Philippines commemorated 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines.

Indeed, Christianity is all around us. We have churches in nearly every city; a kapilya in every village or a place of worship for Christian devotees. We name our sons and daughters after saints and we are one of only two countries in the world with no divorce, along with The Vatican. The Vatican’s theocracy though makes us practically the only nation that forbids divorce.

Our schools, pharmacies and hospitals, too, are named after famous saints.

We start official functions with a prayer and we hear mass on Sundays without fail.

Contradictions

And yet, and yet, the contradictions are endless as they are varied. Corruption and moral degradation in our society today are appalling.

Pastors and prominent religious personalities have been tagged in jaw-dropping crimes.

There’s pastor Apollo Quiboloy and his Kingdom of Jesus Christ which claims to have a cult following of some six million Filipinos. Yet he is the same man accused of human and sex trafficking, money laundering and immigration fraud.

Before Quiboloy, there’s Joel Apolinario, a self-anointed pastor, who founded the Kapa Community Ministry International Inc. (KAPA), touted as the largest investment scam in Philippine history.

Last December, a Butuan City regional trial court found Apolinario and other KAPA leaders guilty beyond reasonable doubt of eight counts of syndicated estafa.

Just outside Quiapo Church in Manila, where devotees and prayer warriors flock nearly every day, one can buy illegal abortifacients for a few pesos. I suspect it’s also where one can find abortionists who will illegally perform abortions with a hanger and a painkiller. This is done usually in motels which charge hourly rates and often in the same bed previously used by lovers, including those in illicit affairs.

Speaking of Quiapo, the annual Feast of the Black Nazarene every January gathers tens of thousands of devotees but make no mistake, those three days also see the most number of petty thievery in the bustling district – from pickpocketing to small time scams, including the sale of “miraculous” oil for one’s ailments or some hoax amulet for a few hundreds, for instance.

Divorce

Divorce, as I said, remains illegal in our country because efforts to push a bill to make it legal have been challenged by our politicos, some of whom have made headlines for having paramours.

Former president Rody Duterte once said:

“This is a world of hypocrisy. Who among you here does not have a mistress?”

For sure, one doesn’t need statistics to know that broken marriages are common in the Philippines, yet it is a country that cringes at the thought of legalizing divorce.

On education, as I said we have schools named after saints and yet, our educational system is corrupted with impunity.

Speaking of schools, there are Catholic schools with teachers accused of sexual misconduct and yet these schools refuse to terminate their employment despite testimonies from students.

Pharmacies, too, are named after saints and yet some of these stores don’t even honor senior citizens’ discounts. The saints they’re named after must be rolling in their graves.

I often wonder how all this came to be when in fact, religion and spirituality are supposed to be beautiful because they serve as a guide to which we can turn when we find ourselves lost in moral despair or life in general.

Did our colonizers also inflict on us this culture of corruption, political patronage and Rasputin-like ways of plotting sinister moves and sowing intrigues just to advance one’s own selfish agenda – along with Christianity and siesta?

Christianity of course isn’t bad. As I said, it’s supposed to be beautiful.

It is perhaps our systems and institutions that have become rotten somewhere along the way, perhaps by our own doing.

What to do then?

A fresh college graduate I know wants to join the government so he can help change the system. But the system is too corrupt and it cannot be reversed, his mother said.

It’s a chicken-and-egg situation of sorts.

But I believe that we must allow the younger generations to change our country for the better, to guard our institutions and to honor themselves and their families.

They are our best hope and, someday, will be our answered prayers.

With the young ones at the helm, hope springs eternal.

Here’s wishing everyone a blessed Easter Sunday.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen (Iris Gonzales) on Facebook.