Charlene Joy C.

Cabanban

Catholicism
The form that Catholicism takes in the Philippines is in many ways unique to
the region in which it is practiced. Across Christian areas of the Philippines
indigenous religions or spiritual practices have entered into and influenced the
practice of Catholicism. It is also possible to see the pre-colonial indigenous
spirituality influenced by Catholic notions. Fenella Cannell did an extensive
ethnography of Catholicism in a village in the region of Bicol Philippines. In her
book Power and Intimacy she provides an in depth look at some of the ways
women attend to the Christ Ama effigy. Across Southeast Asia, especially
insular South East Asia on islands such as Sulawesi and Bali, people
traditionally carved likenesses of their dead loved ones as a way to remember
and worship their ancestors. They would keep the effigies, and/or bones of
their ancestors in the family home or a house designated for that purpose so
that people could visit the effigy. This indigenous Southeast Asian tradition has
influenced the way Filipinos worship Jesus. The carved Ama (Jesus) of the
village in Bicol, Cannell discusses, can be seen as a carry over of this South
east Asian practice. Like other effigies that are carved today in Indonesia, the
Christ Ama is carved from wood, painted, and formed to resemble the person
(in this case a westernized image of Jesus). The effigy is kept in a sacred place
and is accessible to the public. In Bicol the Ama is kept in a designated home.
One of the most interesting ways that Catholicism is amalgamated with the
Ama effigy can be seen during the procession that celebrates the Passion. Each
year the women of the village clean the body of the Ama very carefully as they
do with a real dead body before burial. After this the Ama is carried through
the streets in a funeral like procession while women mourn the passing on of
the Ama. The Easter holiday is in fact a more important holiday for Filipinos
than Christmas, which is not as "passionately" celebrated. In the Filipino
celebration of Easter and the Passion it is possible to see how Filipino
Catholicism diverges very much from Western forms of Catholicism. For the
Filipinos different aspects and notions of Christianity are more important than
for Westerners.
The way Filipinos view their relationship with Jesus is also infused by
distinctly Filipino and Southeast Asian cultural notions. In the Philippines debt
and dependency are the foundations of most social relationships. Any given
person may be in a position of debt or dependency with any number of

individuals with whom they associate, including (but not limited to) family,
friends, politicians, etc. The relationship Filipinos have with Jesus is also
characterized by the idea of debt and dependency. For Filipinos Jesus sacrificed
his life for them to be saved, and so they are indebted to him. But Cannell
suggests that it is somewhat more complex than that. Cannell notes that the
Bicolanos of the Philippines view the holy father and Jesus as "a God who
always credits his own debtors" by which God has made a promise of help to
the Filipinos to bring them to Heaven (195). Therefore, because what God has
done lies somewhere between help and creating an indebtedness for Filipinos,
the indebtedness one might have in owing back a loan is not the same as the
indebtedness they have to Jesus. Rather, the indebtedness to Jesus is similar to
the kind one may have with a family member who "helps" their relative
because of their relatedness and so the action is classified as assistance or
help that doesn't necessarily need to to be paid back in full or equally.
In little more than a century, most lowland Filipinos were converted to
Roman Catholicism. There are a number of reasons why Spanish
missionaries were successful in this attempt:
1. Mass baptism - the initial practice of baptizing large numbers of
Filipinos at one time enabled the initial conversion to Christianity.
Otherwise, there is no way that such a small number of Spanish friars,
or Catholic priests, could have accomplished this goal. It is said that
many Filipinos associated baptism with their own indigenous 'healing
rituals', which also rely on the symbolism of holy water--very typical
of Southeast Asian societies.
2. Reduccion policies - in areas where Filipinos lived scattered across
the landscape in small hamlets, the Spanish military employed a
resettlement policy that they had used successful in Central and Latin
America. This policy was called reduccion, and essentially meant a
forced relocation of small, scattered settlements into one larger town.
Conclusion : The Philippines is approximately 85

percent Christian (mostly Roman Catholic), 10 percent Muslim, and 5

percent 'other' religions, including the Taoist-Buddhist religious beliefs of
Chinese and the 'indigenous' animistic beliefs of some peoples in upland
areas that resisted 300 years of Spanish colonial rule.