This week, all roads will surely lead to Cutud, and so for a change, why not avoid the madding crowd, take the road less travelled, and discover these little-known Holy Week events in Pampanga:
1. The PASYON SERENATA of Brgy. San Basilio in Sta. Rita (Holy Wednesday evening). You’ve heard the pasyon, you’ve heard the serenata, but I’m sure you haven’t heard the pasyon serenata. It’s a showdown between two brass bands and their respective choirs who try to outperform each other by chanting the pasyon to the tune of classical operas. They take turns playing all night—the sight and sound of betel-chewing barrio folks singing the history of salvation in Kapampangan to the tune of Verdi and Puccini will blow you away.
2.. The GRAND ASSEMBLY OF PENITENTS in Mabalacat City (Good Friday early morning). It’s a scene straight out of a Cecil B. DeMille movie: hundreds, maybe thousands, of flagellants and cross-bearers, brought together by sin and tradition, converge in the church patio which makes you wonder if flagellation, like circumcision, is a rite of passage among boys in Pampanga.
3. The CENAKULOS of Pampang in Angeles City (Good Friday late morning). There are at least two passion plays, performed by actors from the vicinity of the public market: one at Brgy. Lourdes Northwest which culminates in a live crucifixion watched by hundreds if not thousands, and a smaller, less-known version, at Area (Brgy. Sta. Teresita), the place once known for its brothels in the 1970s.
4. The EXTREME PENITENTS (Maundy Thursday and Good Friday). They’re all over Pampanga, but it takes luck to catch them—those who carry electric posts and huge banana trunks (seen in Brgy. San Agustin in Magalang), the women cross-bearers, the transvestite cross-bearers, the cross-bearers who tie swords under the chin and armpits, and the dreadful magsalibatbat, who crawl on the road for miles. Those who look for actual crucifixions can also try Brgy. Telapayung in Arayat, where they are more private and more heartfelt.
5. The TANGGAL of Guagua (Good Friday). This is the ritual where a life-size statue of Jesus with moveable neck and joints is taken down from the cross and laid down and dressed up to become the Santo Entierro (The Interred Christ). In the past, parish workers closed all church doors and windows and banged metal sheets to simulate the eclipse and the thunderclaps that accompanied the Crucifixion. Today, we just rely on the rhetoric and theatrics of the Sieta Palabras speakers.
6. The PASO of Bacolor (Good Friday). The old families, scattered all over the country by the lahars of the 1990s, make a sentimental journey back home to accompany their respective paso (float). Tradition dictates that they wear black, cover their heads with pointed hoods, hold icons of the crucifixion and walk barefoot (probably a legacy from ancestors in Seville, Spain).
7. The UNUSUAL BIYERNIS SANTO PROCESSION of Sasmuan (Good Friday)—unusual because the grim procession of the dead Jesus and His grieving Mother is followed by a grimmer procession of magdarame (flagellants and cross-bearers). Sasmuan is the only place I know where this strange mix of the folk and the orthodox is allowed.