WE all know that Catholicism is a legacy of the Spaniards in the Philippines, so how come we are still able to retain it to the present time?<\/p>\r\r
Dr. Fernando Santiago Jr., our director at the De La Salle University Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub (I am listed as a research affiliate), asked me to give a talk at the DLSU Southeast Asia Research Forum on the theme, \"Decoloniality and Social Theory in Southeast Asia: An Introspection\" last July 16. He tasked me to connect interfaith dialogue with decolonizing our views of religion.<\/p>\r\r
Interfaith dialogue in the Spanish colonial experience of the Philippines was just impossible because Spanish colonization demanded a change of faith from the Filipinos, which is different from how the Dutch in Indonesia, the British in Malaya or the French in Indochina only got the toil of the colonized peoples. This is also why decolonizing their culture was a discourse that came much later to them.<\/p>\r\r\rAn awesome display of folk Catholicism at the Traslacion of the Poong Jesus Nazareno in 2015. PHOTO BY XIAO CHUA<\/figcaption>\r<\/figure>\r\r
With this in mind, true interfaith dialogue happens only with \"decolonization.\"<\/p>\r\r
But did decolonization start during the American colonial period when they gave freedom of religion to the islands as a policy? Not quite. For Filipinos, inter-faith dialogue and decolonization, in a way, happened unwittingly as soon as Catholicism was introduced to us.<\/p>\r\r
It was always said that the Spaniards changed our religion and made Filipinos Catholics. But actually, we appropriated Catholicism, made it our own and mixed our traditional practices with the new religion. How much more dialogue can we get than that? Even the early Spanish friars like Fray Andres de Urdaneta encouraged acculturation. It is a testament to the strength and surviving power of our culture. We don't usually mind it now because it has become a way of life of the \"bayan\" to see the indigenous faith in the new faith.<\/p>\r\r
But in the 19th century, a new elite emerged from the indios and according to the great historian Zeus Salazar, a great cultural divide emerged between those who were educated in Spanish schools and the \"bayan.\" The former's view of religion became European and saw the exotic in the ethnic practices of Filipino Catholicism. This kind of viewpoint continues to this day.<\/p>\r\r
Yet, it was Pedro Paterno, in his work \"La Antigua Civilizacion Tagala,\" who noted the similarities between the Indigenous and the Christian, especially in the monotheism of the Filipinos believing in the Supreme God, Bathala and the other rituals, and because of this he said that Catholicism became more acceptable to Filipinos. His argument shows his aspiration to actually be accepted by the Spaniards so the Philippines could be a province of Spain.<\/p>\r\r
But in the 1950s, Zeus Salazar, who read Paterno and the propagandists in his University of Paris Sorbonne PhD in Ethnology on the concept of \"anito\" (ancestral spirit) and the religion of our ancestors, the Austronesians, already planted a seed that would grow to become \"Pantayong Pananaw\" (from-us-for-us perspective) and the indigenization movements in the Philippine social sciences.<\/p>\r\r
After the Second Vatican Council and the acceptance of the Church's responsibility in proliferating colonialism, many in the Church had been acknowledging acculturation and folk Christianity as a reality. There's the Vatican II document \"Lumen Gentium,\" which acknowledges the \"sensus fidei fidelium\" (sense of the faith on the part of the faithful), that the expressions of faith coming from the sense of the faithful, not necessarily those that come from dogma, are valid. But this has now become part of the intensifying and heated polemic between the traditionalists and the liberals in the Church.<\/p>\r\r
Yet the move to decolonize religion is getting stronger. Inspired by the studies of Salazar and also of Prospero Covar, who highlighted the indigenous elements in the Rizalista and Protestant churches, I dared to use Pantayong Pananaw as a framework in my PhD Anthropology dissertation at a time when mostly Western theories were favored. I embarked on a study of the Traslacion of the Poong Jesus Nazareno, a popular devotion that happens every January 9 in Quiapo, Manila.<\/p>\r\r
The high emotions and expressive display of devotion by the devotees were often exoticized by some in the academe and the media as fanaticism and craze. But looking at it in the Pantayong Pananaw, which puts a high premium on asking the \"bayan\" what their perspectives are on what they are doing, the ritual actually shows bayanihan, \"pakikipagkapwa\" and a concept of order brought by the community themselves when they push the \"andas\" to move it forward or fix its direction. This concept is called \"salya.\"<\/p>\r\r
The tone of the media coverage has been changing through the years, thanks to the decolonizing power of not imposing dogma. The sacramental can go hand in hand with culture, and with true understanding and acceptance of the reality of acculturation, we can really reach genuine interfaith dialogue that leads to peace.<\/p>","article_custom_fields":"{\"\":[\"\"],\"seo_meta_keywords\":[\"\"],\"seo_meta_description\":[\"\"],\"seo_meta_title\":[\"\"],\"sponsored_flag\":[\"\"],\"offer_flag\":[\"off\"],\"featured_article_flag\":[\"\"],\"drupal_json\":[\"{\\\"type\\\":null,\\\"properties\\\":{\\\"PUBLISHED\\\":0,\\\"PROMOTED\\\":0,\\\"STICKY\\\":0},\\\"fields\\\":[]}\"],\"wp_custom_json\":[\"{\\\"type\\\":\\\"\\\",\\\"fields\\\":[]}\"],\"article_tags\":[\"\"],\"show_image\":[\"off\"],\"Disable_Ad\":[\"off\"],\"disable_player\":[\"off\"],\"column\":[\"\"],\"kicker\":[\"\"],\"edel\":[\"\"],\"delu\":[\"\"],\"delt\":[\"Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.\"],\"premium\":[\"off\"],\"Redirect_URL\":[\"\"],\"Registration_required\":[\"off\"],\"background_image\":[\"off\"],\"page_number\":\"0\",\"initial_publication\":\"\",\"date_created\":\"2024-07-22 21:06:47\",\"date_modified\":\"2024-07-22 21:09:33\",\"last_modified_user\":\"Severino Frayna\",\"section_color\":\"\",\"target_page\":\"0\",\"cxense_metatags\":null}","cms_type":"live","author_id":629,"section_id":13,"seo_meta_keywords":"Decolonizing,colonial,religion","seo_meta_description":"","seo_meta_title":"Decolonizing colonial religion","publish_time":"2024-07-23 00:04:00","related_articles_ids":"","article_tags":"","sub_section_id":6,"visit_count":90,"sponsored_flag":0,"offer_flag":0,"featured_article_flag":0,"media_gallery_flag":0,"video_gallery_flag":0,"highlight_flag":0,"top_story_flag":0,"is_updated":0,"is_old_article":0,"old_article_id":0,"article_byline":"Michael \"Xiao\u201d Chua","ts":"2024-07-24 06:48:03","last_edited":"2024-07-22 21:09:33","alt_publish_time":"2024-07-22 21:09:38","image_path":"{\\\"image_path\\\":\\\"manilatimes\\\\\/uploads\\\\\/images\\\\\/2024\\\\\/07\\\\\/22\\\\\/377983.jpg\\\",\\\"cms_type\\\":\\\"live\\\",\\\"small_image\\\":\\\"\\\",\\\"is_updated\\\":\\\"0\\\",\\\"image_cropping\\\":\\\"{\\\\\\\"original_image\\\\\\\":{\\\\\\\"image_original_width\\\\\\\":1920,\\\\\\\"image_original_height\\\\\\\":1008,\\\\\\\"icd_image_type\\\\\\\":\\\\\\\"original_image\\\\\\\"},\\\\\\\"main_image\\\\\\\":{\\\\\\\"image_main_width\\\\\\\":1200,\\\\\\\"image_main_height\\\\\\\":630,\\\\\\\"icd_image_type\\\\\\\":\\\\\\\"main_image\\\\\\\"}}\\\",\\\"is_copied\\\":\\\"0\\\",\\\"media_type\\\":\\\"0\\\",\\\"image_caption\\\":\\\"Michael \\\\\\\"Xiao\\\\u201d Chua\\\",\\\"image_alt_text\\\":\\\"\\\",\\\"image_count\\\":2}","author_name":"Michael \u201cXiao\u201d Chua","section_name":"Opinion","sub_section_name":"Columns","slide_show":0,"breaking_news":0,"visit_count_update_date":"2024-07-24 06:48:03","old_cms_article_id":null,"permalink":"2024\/07\/23\/opinion\/columns\/decolonizing-colonial-religion\/1959088","show_image_in_thumb":0,"api_status":2,"a_custom_data":"{\"exclude_from_gallery\":null,\"lead_image_id\":null}","publication_id":2,"max_publish_time":"2024-07-23 00:04:00","page_number":"0","homepage_article_flag":0,"article_shortlink":null,"cropped_image":0};
WE all know that Catholicism is a legacy of the Spaniards in the Philippines, so how come we are still able to retain it to the present time?
Dr. Fernando Santiago Jr., our director at the De La Salle University Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub (I am listed as a research affiliate), asked me to give a talk at the DLSU Southeast Asia Research Forum on the theme, "Decoloniality and Social Theory in Southeast Asia: An Introspection" last July 16. He tasked me to connect interfaith dialogue with decolonizing our views of religion.
