incessant rambling

the title Black Magic Mary is enough to conjur images of a witch draped in black robes similar to that of the Virgin Mary albeit with a more sinister aura. in Sta. Maria Church in Siquijor, a saint wearing a black habit holds a skull in one hand and an "inverted cross" in another is fast gaining a reputation that is probably influenced by the mystic history of the island itself. locals have speculated that the skull is actually her husband's and that she murdered her husband for reasons that seems to have been lost in history. a bit of research show that the locals refer to the saint as Santa Rita de Siquijor, probably a Filipino convention where we name the Virgin Mary with annexes related to places (e.g. Our Lady of Guadalupe). my own research led me to discover this particular "myth" in an effort to know more about Santa Rita de Cascia who is the patron saint of a church and town named after her in Pampanga. The first thing that caught my attenti...

San Guillermo, Bacolor Pampanga i find it embarrassing, really. everyone i asked couldn't give me the answer when i asked if they knew the name of Mama Mary's mother. and if you're one of them, i bet you just popped another browser tab open to try and research the information in google. I wouldn't have known if I didn't get the chance to visit barili in cebu and chanced upon a church dedicated to her. It is doubly embarrassing that as a catholic i don't know that piece of information. The locals excavated the original retablo and mounted it closer to the dome of the original church which leads me to a thought of how we name churches and the saints that magically bestow its protection over the town that carries their name as a patron. i guess, naming every church after Jesus or Mary would be a bit confusing. in a recent trip to pampanga, i asked my hosts to bring me to bacolor to get the chance to visit the remains of the church that got buried i...

At the start of this particular millennium, I read for the first time about Santiago de Campostela in a book by Paolo Coelho who wrote about his pilgrimage in Northern Spain. I didn’t expect that I’d be reconnected with the same history in a town much closer to home in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga. take note of the wooden floors, low view of the main altar from the entrance betis church, exterior The curiously grand baroque church of Betis is dedicated to the town patron Apung Tiago, otherwise known as St. James the Great. The name Santiago is an abbreviation of the original Latin “Sanctus” and standard Hebrew “Ya-agov” or “Ya-aqo” that means “lacobus” in latin. “Lacobus” means “lago” or “Jaime” in Spain and translates to “James” in English. the baptismal area wide view of the altar Santiago de Campostela is famous in Gallica, Spain as a pilgrimage route that leads to the shrine where legend says the dead body of Santiago was brought by angels in an unattended boat fro...

Can someone tell me where is the quality of life in this scenario? what the church doesn't understand is that the very act of publicly condemning the Reproductive Health (click on link for the full text of the proposed bill) and making it the subject of full page ads in national papers only add to the interest of the otherwise apathetic attitude of most filipinos. they should have taken their cue from "Da Vinci Code". i've heard the rhetoric and selective interpretation from the catholic church regarding the (proposed) RH Bill. RH Bill is Anti-Life. RH Bill promotes Abortion, RH Bill promotes pre-marital sex. RH Bill should not be funded by taxes paid by Filipinos, majority of which are Catholics thus making the tax money, a Catholic fund. each pronouncement, adding more fuel to the curiosity of the filipino why the church is exerting an all out war against the RH Bill. the church claims they are fighting for the life of the yet unborn child but more filipinos...

apparently, the foot IN mouth disease is not relegated to the trio-tagapagpayo a.k.a. press liaison officers of PNoy who has done a number of announcements that were later recanted or contradicted by PNoy himself or the other members of the circus band. but when senior members of the church fall in the same category of categorically denying previous pronouncements, they fall dangerously close to crossing the boundaries of show business. we have thinly held tolerance for church meddling in politics but priests as showbiz chismis personalities? we can only tolerate that much. CBCP president Bishop Nereo Odchimar is proving to be adept at doing a showbiz denial tactic when he refuted his earlier announcement that the church can possibly excommunicate PNoy for supporting the RH Bill. despite the fact that a transcription of his previous interview clearly said that it is a remote possibility for the excommunication to happen. if that's not enough, church officials are "urgin...