Schedule
Nov. 27, 2024 | 2:15–3:45 PM
Room
Rm 5, Emerald-Citrine
Moderator
Emmylou Felimer
Department of Foreign Affairs
B5.1
With Their Own Hands, An Angry Christ Amidst Brown Saints: Moments of Modernity Diasporic Liturgical Art Embodied by Sacral Sakadas Inside a Sugar Central
Jose Santos P. Ardivilla
Texas State University
The Angry Christ mural at the Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker has glared since the 1950s but its gaze should not be relegated merely as divine affectation but that of a result of tidal exchanges between cultures, between shifts of colonial to independence, between wartime and reconstruction, between the amo (the master) and the worker, between diasporic elite and migrant laborers, between Catholic dogma and personal assertions of faith. In this presentation, the Angry Christ situates from the points of view not from the divine but from (1) the laboring bodies of the Sakadas and the towns folks that constructed the chapel and saw their pagkatao (personhood) elevated as figures of saints and of nationhood wrapping the structure; (2) from the elite Filipino-American Alfonso Ossorio (whose family owns the sugar processing mill where the chapel is located) through his painting of the Angry Christ as a returning son of the landed gentry; and (3) of the Belgian-American liturgical artist Ade Bethune whose practice as a liturgical artist has instilled an activist operation in her images and in her interactions with the Filipinos as the chapel is being constructed. Thus, the “anger” in the Angry Christ can that be of situational moments of modernity from overlapping diasporic laboring bodies [(i) from the migrant sakadas, (ii) from the shift of magisterial divine images to that of the ordinary quotidian liturgical art by Ade Bethune, and (iii) Alfonso Ossorio’s ilustrado imagination] that veered away from the traditional Spanish Baroque Church architecture and visual arts and emerged a chapel catering to the patron saint of laborers held together and emanating from a gaze from reconstruction and as a promise of volatility of a visual culture that informs the modern nation of the Philippines.
B5.2
Baroque Churches of the Philippines: Cultural Mediators of the Colonial Heritage between the Philippines and Spain in Collective Memories
Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja
Independent
During the Spanish colonization, Roman Catholics built the Baroque Churches of the Philippines (16th–18th centuries). Dispersed over its archipelago, the church group developed construction and design in response to local physical constraints. The new architectural tradition was a fusion of European church design and construction with indigenous materials and symbols, representing the Baroque style through Philippine interpretation. Their features suggest a fortress character against marauders, pirates, and the nation’s geologic conditions. After the Muslim pirates’ destruction, the Miagao Church was rebuilt (1787–1797) with a fortress structure and towers. The church’s exterior evokes an altar because the Archbishop of Valencia, Santo Tomas de Villanueva, resides in a nook above the main entrance. His fame was gained through an ascetical lifestyle, preaching, and almsgiving to the underprivileged. Moreover, Pope Pius VI and St. Henry of Bavaria are housed in the other two niches.
The facade is the perfect translation of Western decorative features in the locality. St. Christopher clutches a coconut palm while wearing a traditional garment and bearing the Christ Child. The contrast between the Baroque design and the folk adornment represents the acculturation of indigenous tradition and contemporary European style. Questions arise: (1) A church is a cultural asset that is a permanent representation of the divine project as it pertains to the universe and a symbolic location. Catholics sense the coexistence of an afterlife ruled by God and a world in harmony. (2) Regionalism understands how imported (in)tangible objects have been assimilated into the local culture by examining invasive forms that have shaped indigenous archetypes. This paper discusses the Miagao façade to analyze “collective memory” between Spain and the Philippines, which looks at social memory and proposes its creation-sharing transmission. Everyone’s memory is captured via their collective memories within social structures. Believers are bound to earlier generations by architecture and memories.
B5.3
Sinful Body, Sacred Ground: The Body as Site and Sight of Panata in the Latag Banig at Lambong Tradition of Angono, Rizal
Manuel Kristoffer C. Giron
University of the Philippines Diliman
Latag banig at lambong is an annual Holy Week practice in the town of Angono, Rizal. In this tradition, the participants place their banig and lambong on the ground to create a path for the priest and his apostoles (lay persons who play the role of Christ’s twelve apostles) during the procession on Palm Sunday and the transfer of the Holy Eucharist from the tabernacle to the altar of repose on Maundy Thursday.
I explore in this paper the discourses of the body that are generated from the performance of the practice. While the material aspect of the tradition virtually centers on the banig and lambong, it is the body that activates their meanings. From the lens of body in the context of devotion, borrowing insights from Leonardo Mercado, Anril Tiatco, Cecilia De La Paz, and Robert R. Desjarlais, I note the ways by which the katawan becomes site and sight of panata, in that it is in the body that the participants experience and perform their suffering and atonement, ritualized through the acts of kneeling, bowing of heads, and enabling the priest to walk on their banig and lambong. At the same time, the participants frame the practice through notions of the body through language (magaan ang katawan, maginhawa ang pakiramdam, kababaang loob), their movement in space (pagluhod, pagyuko, ibinababa ang sarili), and the perceived transformation of body in/and space (sinful body, sacred ground) in their performance of panata.
B5.4
Understanding the Language of Faith: The Confluence between the Jehova and Kankana-ey in the Philippines
Marvin R. Tenecio
University of the Philippines Diliman
The Kankana-ey is one of the languages used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in their worship service. Jehovah’s Witnesses are claimed to have been present in La Trinidad prior to the advent of World War II. The conducted study used a descriptive methodology where some terminologies were taken from their brochure. The data suggests that like other religions, Jehovah’s Witnesses employ abstract words or phrases in their persuasion or sharing their belief through the use of Kankana-ey. This includes customs, morality, beauty, and matey (death), which can be considered a new variety or variation of the Kankana-ey language.