Crucified (literally) thirty times - and still rising in the Philippines

EVERY year since 1986, Ruben Enaje has been nailed to a cross on Good Friday. This year is no different – he will join six others being crucified in the famous Pampanga passion play, 40 miles north of Manila.

The well-known Filipino penitent mimics the suffering of Jesus on the cross to give thanks for surviving a fall from a three-storey building.

Interviewed at home on the eve of his crucifixion, Enaje calmly declared he was ready to be crucified for the thirtieth time, fulfilling a vow he made three decades ago ‘as my expression of self sacrifice thanking our Lord Jesus Christ for saving my life’.

Enaje was working on a building site as a sign painter when he slipped. 

‘While I was falling I uttered the words ‘Dios ko!’ [‘My God!’] and the next moment I realised I was on the ground, but still conscious,’ he said.

‘Miracle’

’It was a miracle I survived the fall without a broken bone. I did not stand up immediately thinking I had broken my legs and body, but after a few moments I found out I was okay.’

Enaje said he owes his life to Jesus, ‘that’s why every Good Friday I have to undergo the crucifixion ritual’.

The first time Enaje was nailed to the cross he didn’t tell his wife and children. ‘They cried when they saw me all bloodied. I explained to them afterwards and they understood,’ he said.

The crucifixions are in Burol, a man-made hill in Barangay San Pedro Cutud, five miles from San Fernando. The re-enactment of the passion play attracts thousands of tourists each year to the village in northern Philippines.

Enaje will be crucified with four three-inch nails and will carry a 16-foot-long wooden cross weighing 80 pounds along the one-mile walk up to Burol. He will wear a steel crown on his head.

Actors dressed as centurions will whip Enaje and other penitents along the way. One year Enaje was kicked and tumbled down the road. ‘The pain was excruciating, but I bear it out,’ he said.

Devotees undergo the crucifixions in the belief that such extreme sacrifices are a way to atone for their sins, attain miracle cures for illnesses as well as giving thanks to God.

The Philippines’ hot weather isn’t putting Enaje off.  He said he ‘is a bit concerned’ but ‘will continue to be nailed to the cross, come what may’.

Devotees lining the route will give bottled water to Enaje and the other penitents to keep them from being dehydrated.

Enaje continues with the ritual despite saying last year that he hoped he’d be replaced because ‘the pain in my right shoulder where I carry the cross persists year round’.

No scars

But what is intriguing – and even Enaje could not explain it – is that his palms and feet show no scars from the nails that are knocked through them each year.

Enaje is the longest Filipino penitent being nailed to the cross in the Good Friday ritual. Before his crucifixtions he recalled that as a four-year-old he accompanied his father whipping himself as a flagellant every Good Friday.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines has discouraged Filipino penitents being nailed to a cross.

Father Kit Ramirez, a Catholic priest from Manila, said the Church is against the practice ‘because Jesus Christ made that great sacrifice only once to save mankind from sin’.

It has been described by the Church as a mixture of Catholic devotion and folk belief, but the spectacle draws many tourists to the area.

Ching Pangilinan, a tourism officer, said she expects people from all walks of life at this year’s event. ’We expect 30,000 people, including domestic and foreign tourists, and over 200 journalists – half of them foreigners – coming to witness the annual bloody crucifixion on Good Friday.’

Foreigners aren’t allowed to take part in the ritual but in 2014 Danish film maker and stuntman, Lasse Spang Olsen pursuaded the organisers to let him be nailed to a cross. He wanted to understand Ruben Enaje’s motivation after making a documentary about him.

As an atheist, he wanted to understand why people put themselves through the torture of a crucifixion. He said most people had a ‘deal’ with God to receive something in return, but after he came down from the cross he described how, after starting to pray, he felt ‘complete peace without pain’.

As part of the security protocol in the wake of the terror attacks in Belgium, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police have tightened security across the country, particularly in areas where millions of Christians gather in churches to celebrate Holy Week religious rites.

‘We are not taking any chances,’ Brigadier General Restituto Padilla Jr, a spokesman for the AFP said. Soldiers in pairs were seen patrolling the streets on Holy Thursday.