Pabasa, Penitensya, Pasyon: Acts of Devotion in Filipino Holy Week
A look into the powerful rituals that define faith and tradition during Holy Week in the Philippines.
If all the nations of the Catholic Church lived under the same roof and got up together for Sunday Mass, then the Philippines would, without a white shadow of a doubt, be the earliest one awake. One would wager that the Philippines will be even more punctual than Italy itself, the very home of the Vatican! Why is that the case? Because the Philippines is the undisputed citadel of Christendom in Asia, and it’s not even close.
In a census done back in 2020, about 78.8% of the country reportedly belonged to Roman Catholics. That’s 85.65 million believers across households and schools. Religion here is a massive sociocultural force, carrying the moral authority to influence national discourse and shape public values.
Ordinary Filipino folks are extraordinarily passionate when it comes to their unique blend of folk Catholicism. These unyieldingly optimistic people do not hold back in their worship of Christ, especially during the culmination of Lent.
Holy Week, beginning in Palm Sunday and ending in Easter Sunday, is an integral time of reverent observance, with epic bursts of religious fervor in the form of sacred rituals, chants, and plays. It’s when the thoroughfare of Manila is emptied as its inhabitants leave the city to make for their yearly pilgrimage of stopping by seven churches for Visita Iglesia.
Holy Week is a time-honored tradition celebrating the enduring spirit of five hundred years of Christianity in the Philippines. The plenitude of praise, penance, and piety is on a leviathan scale unlike any other. No shortage of procession, no scarcity of rites. And there is so much creativity with how the deeply religious embody their God-fearing, Christ-loving ways in the islands.
Pabasa ng Pasyon
Reading of the Passion
This panata, or act of devotion, is one of the oldest Holy Week rituals, a ponderous all-night singing of the Passion in metered verses before an altar of the crucifix or a flagellated image of Christ. In cathedrals, chapels, homesteads, barangay halls, and prisons, believers from every walk of life gather around for the Pabasa ng Pasyon.
The first Tagalog version of the Pabasa dates back to 1704 and is credited to Gaspar Aquino de Belen, native of Batangas and in the service of Jesuits. It was entitled “Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin na Tola”, or “The poem of the Blessed Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord”.
It’s one of the simplest ways to fulfill your vow of thanksgiving, of favors received from favors asked, and all it asks from you is to sacrifice your time by reminiscing the life of Jesus Christ, lasting from the afternoon of Holy Thursday to the morning of Good Friday.
There are different styles in which the Pabasa can be done, and it mostly depends on the setting. The Pasyon singers, accompanied by an assortment of musical instruments, can alternate between two individuals or two groups.
Though this communitarian activity is reserved for spiritual meditation, behaving as one would for a liturgy of the Word, it should be noted that there have been instances, such as in the younger generations, where the Pasyon singers vocalize the verses by rapping, preferring to reflect the life of Christ on their own terms, not on the terms of their elders.
In Latin, the word “passion” hails from “suffering”, emphasizing that the root of Christ’s love emanates from his suffering on the cross, and that our salvation comes through God sending His only son to die.
Pagsisisi at Penitensya
Repentance and Penance
Repentance is the turning away of sin, while penance is the outward expression of one’s repentance. These are the very things Catholics seek out in response to sin, and they may achieve this by performing sacrificial acts such as fasting, prayer, service, or partaking in religious theater—namely the Senakulo.
A Senakulo is a stage or street play reenacting the Passion of Jesus. It can occur over multiple nights. In parts of Rizal, Bulacan, and Bataan, it is known as the pasyon y muerte, or passion play. In the regions of Bicol, it is known as tanggal. In Leyte, it is known as pamalandong. In Laguna, it is known as centurion or hudyuhan.
These plays, narrating the life and death of the Son of Man, serve as spiritual edification, and it is one method of purging our sins, but Filipinos, being passionate to the extreme, sometimes take it a step further. This is what sets Pampanga devotees apart from other penitents.
For them, it’s not enough to merely act, they have to recreate the bloody conditions of Christ’s torment on his arduous trek to Calvary, down to the crucifixion. It is some truly nail-biting stuff watching them get nailed to a cross, seeing their faces writhe in pain. The graphic image of self-flagellation will be burned into your retina.
In an admixture of performance and ritualized violence, the performers gain transcendence in the eyes of the group through enduring punishment that would not be condoned under normal circumstances, blurring the lines between performance and real life.
In a country where faith and devotion are woven into the everyday, it is unsurprising that the image of the crucified one, head bowed, mouth agape in excruciating agony, provides consolation and an outlet for one’s pent-up emotions.
The practice of the panata has largely been identified with the impoverished members of society, and this suggests that the suffering of Jesus Christ may well have a basis in class and an appeal that resonates with the barangay-dwelling poor.
The Christian idea of eternal indebtedness to Christ is highly symbiotic with our cultural concept of utang na loob, or a debt of gratitude. There is a sense that no matter how much or how hard we try, we might never be able to repay it, though it is no excuse to not try for the Filipino faithful.
Conclusions
The Philippines is one of the most active members of the Catholic Church as shown by their displays of faith by way of the Pabasa ng Pasyon, the Senakulo, and their various methods of panata. It raises the question of whether we’ll ever see a Filipino in the papacy.
In the novel Conclave written by Robert Harris and adapted for the big screen, we see just that in the character of Pope Benitez. Though his ethnicity was changed to Mexican in the movie, the character was originally a Filipino in the source material. Benitez served in the slums of Tondo and San Andres, Bahala Na and Kuratong Baleleng, Payatas and Bagong Silangan, where he built rescue missions for child prostitutes and ailing drug addicts. Author Robert Harris did justice in representing the Filipinos’ faith in his novel.
In real life, many consider Cardinal Luis Tagle as a key contender primed to be the next pope. Be that as it may, this is mere speculative conjecture, and it’s beside the point. Filipinos will always be devoted regardless.
Our relationship with God is usually an intimate, private affair, but Filipinos want to share it. They want to share the love. They want to pray for hope together. They want to practice their faith together. This, above all else, is the finest trait one can find from the everyday good Filipino Christian and upright citizen.
So, to all you people of goodwill, Discover Philippines hopes you have a blessed Holy Week!
Bibliography
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