20 Nailed to Wood Crosses in Philippines Rite

At least 20 people, including a woman, were nailed to wooden crosses while hundreds whipped themselves bloody in an orgy of self-flagellation to mark Good Friday in the Philippines.

“It’s very painful,” Mynardo Pabustan said, showing the holes in the palm of his hand where the nails had gone through.

Under a scorching noon sun in Asia’s only Roman Catholic nation, 10 men were impaled on wooden crosses as 30,000 people watched the spectacle in a rice field outside San Fernando city, 30 miles north of Manila.

Hundreds of tourists from the United States, Europe and Japan witnessed the gory re-enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion 2,000 years ago.

Mario Castro, who has been performing the ritual for eight years every Good Friday, screamed as people playing the role of Roman soldiers hammered the first nail into his hand. He fainted after being lowered from the cross five minutes later.

At least seven other people were put up on crosses in three other districts around San Fernando, a woman was nailed to a cross in Bulacan province and two men submitted themselves to the rite in Manila.

Elsewhere, 500 people flagellated themselves with wooden whips encrusted with broken glass, and hundreds more beat themselves bloody.

Devotees say the crucifixions and flagellation are part of a rite of penance to ask God for forgiveness of sins and seek divine favors, such as a cure for seriously ill family members.

The country’s Catholic Church frowns on the practices.

“I can’t understand the motivation. Is it real?” asked a 28-year-old American development worker from Roseburg, Ore.

Organizers of the spectacle said it is intended to raise money for the rice-growing region hit hard by a drought.

Thursday evening President Corazon Aquino, accompanied by her children, prayed in six different Catholic churches in observance of Holy Week.