Joseph Eli Arboleda Occeno y Java Garcia 08/11/19

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Deboto: A Reaction Paper

Perhaps one of the best epitome of Filipino culture, and I mean the hybrid Filipino and
not aboriginal indio, is Christian devotion. I have observed from my study of Filipino culture that
the reason why Christianity was an instant hit to our ancestors, excluding the Muslims, was
because both Spanish and early native cultures gave grandeur to their gods. The bright colors, the
ornaments, the garments that adorned the Sto. Nino of Cebu might have been the reason why
after the death of Magellan, it became, among our pagan forefathers, a tribal idol. Of course, the
way the Spaniards worshipped the Sto. Nino was very different from our ancestors but the cult of
the Christ Child has its origins in the Middle Ages of Europe and is peculiar to the culture of the
continent. Let’s put in some context.

In Apostolic times, no representation of Christ was possible because of the biblical taboo
on graven images. Instead, non-Jewish Christians allowed themselves the symbol of the Lord as
fish. When the Church has been firmly established, classic prejudices forbade representations of
the Christ as agonized and dying and instead demanded a purely divine Christ who is untroubled
and triumphant. In Europe, however, where Christianity had become a primitive religion among
barbarous folk, simpler and naiver concepts of Christ pervaded. Just as Europe naively began
with the Child, so the Philippines started with the primitive concept. The Faith, in the
Philippines, began as a devotion, a folk devotion to the Child. Pre-Hispanic religion need no
introduction I am sure, countless gods, nature spirits or anito, mythical creatures have been
worshipped by our forebears with an animosity and lavishness. Why, even anthills had some sort
of special place in our homes for when one was found growing, it was paid tribute by the natives
with food so as not to offend the spirit lurking known by many names such as Nuno, the old man
of the mound, the guardian of the forest, called Kibaan and Lampong, plague-caster, curse-giver
or, perhaps by its most famous name, Duen De Casa, a Spanish term that meant “true owner of
the land”, where we got the now Filipino term, Duwende. I digress.

This hybridization of culture marks the unity in our archipelago established by

Chrstianity nearly 500 years ago. Every people remakes Christianity in its image, and that is as it
should be. Gone are the days when puritans frowned upon such marriages of the pagan and the
Christians. There are, of course, people whose ideal Catholic is a well-behaved person who
Joseph Eli Arboleda Occeno y Java Garcia 08/11/19
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makes the proper responses in mass. But for the common folk of the Philippines, the
participation in religious ceremonies has to be far more active than a mere recitation of prayers.
Our style of worship, contrary to the passive devotion of the West, approaches the extravagant.
We chant or sob our prayers out loud; we walk on our knees; we dance in church; we carry holy
images on our shoulders in howling procession; we flog ourselves on Good Friday. Outsiders to
our culture would naturally think it distasteful and not wholly Christian which shows how little
we understand Christianity or true religion. Do they? Can Christianity be reduced to pure and
simple ethics, to lving by God’s word, to doing good and be good? That was a Puritan ideal, and
Filipinos, no matter how hard we try, will never be Puritans. Our devotion to Christianity has
taken some of its elements from pagan culture such as the parading of the folk gods which is now
replaced by saints, the anito in the houses now replaced by the Sto. Nino, or even the eating of
the chieftain’s flesh and drinking of his blood now replaced by the Holy Communion.

The manic frenzy many of our most zealous Catholic brothers and sisters is evident from
the jampacked Quiapo streets during Nazareno where we offer up hankerchiefs and rosaries to be
blessed by the idol, while some walk barefoot to show their devotion. The blind faith that we
have on Christianity is perhaps due to our own culture and not because of some outside
intervention we keep insisting the Spanish colonization was. Why the Church succeeded in the
Philippines is apparent: it was willing to absorb and Christianize pagan cultures in the islands.
Christianity didn’t simply come and abruptly cut us off from our past, it shared as our past and as
the link to the present by allowing itself to live pagan amongst us and resulted to a Philippine
style of worship – folk Catholicism if you will, a religion with our own accents and one which
preserves our pre-Hispanic roots.