Moriones Festival

The Moriones Festival is where Christian teaching meets folk art.

Long before Mel Gibson came up with the blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ,” Marinduque’s home-bred directors, actors, costume and production designers have staged Jesus’ passion every year, albeit with a different twist.

For the islanders, Lent is when a colorful reminder of Jesus’ passion in the hands of Roman centurions plays out in a dramatic street tableau. The festival is celebrated mainly in five towns of Marinduque--Boac, Gasan, Santa Cruz, Buenavista and Mogpog--that literally turns them into a living stage.

The festival took its name from “Morion,” the mask or visor used by ancient Roman soldiers as part of their helmet.

During the festival, masked men march around the town for a week in a drama that portrays the search for Longinus, a Roman centurion who was blind in one eye.

Longinus’ pursuers are actually penitents who don colorful costumes, hand-painted masks and helmets and bright robes.

The week-long festival, which starts on Holy Monday and is one of the Philippines’ most colorful events, culminates on Easter Sunday, when the story of Longinus is reenacted in a street play.

Christian tradition has it that Longinus pierced the side of the crucified Christ. The blood that sprang forth touched his one blind eye and restored his sight.

The miracle converted the fierce one-eyed Roman soldier to Christianity, a move that earned the ire of other centurions. The street play hits the climax when Longinus is caught and beheaded for betraying pagan Rome.

During Lent in Marinduque, families and villages also hold a unique tradition of the “pabasa” or the recitation of Christ's passion in lyrical lamentations. Catholics also reenact the “Way of the Cross” (Via Crucis) while flagellants, called “antipos,” inflict suffering upon themselves to atone for their sins.

An interesting bit of this festival is the reverence given to a sculpture depicting the dead body of Christ (Santo Sepulcro) in which old women exchange Biblical verses as they stand in wake of the dead Christ.