ANGELES CITY – Like Pontius Pilate washing off hands, organizers of last Good Friday’s crucifixions in Barangay Lourdes Northwest here said they had nothing to do with tourists “irreverently” posing for souvenir shots while clinging to a cross where penitents had earlier been crucified.
Controversy was triggered by the photos, particularly one showing a woman in shorts sexily hanging from the cross behind her, after they went viral on Facebook where one Maike Domingo posted them in his account.
Hundreds posted comments expressing dismay if not condemnation of the alleged “irreverence” of those who posed for the photos.
“Those photos were taken after the crucifixion rites when everybody, including the marshalls who were assigned to secure the site, had already gone home to rest,” barangay chairman and chief organizer Paul Puri said.
He stressed that actual crucifixions in his barangay has become a Lenten tradition since 12 years ago, although the reenactment of the Via Crucis or the Way of the Cross with costumed characters started only when he assumed post two years past.
Puri related that last Good Friday, three local penitents were crucified on three crosses, each 20 horizontally feet long.
“The entire Via Crucis, including the bringing down of the Kristos from their crosses, was finished before 5 p.m. and everybody, including the marshalls who were already very tired, was supposed to have gone home,” he said.
Puri said that traditionally, the three crosses were kept standing until the following Monday, in deference to Easter Sunday.
“We never wanted tourists to climb the crosses and have their pictures taken while mimicking crucifixion even after the entire ceremony. That is the reason why we fenced the crucifixion site with cyclone wire with its entrances kept padlocked,” he stressed.
Puri also noted that the foot rest on the cross was about five feet from the ground and was thus readily not accessible. “It would require the help of others to reach and step on it,” he added.
He said that “apparently, the tourists who posed for photos arrived after 5 p.m. and trespassed into the area of the crosses by leaping over the lowest areas of the fence.”
Puri said that neither the person who posted the photos on Facebook nor those who posed for photos were from his barangay. “I think they were all tourists,” he added.
He said the controversy on the photos has taught him and other organizers some lesson, though.
“Next year, we will make sure that the marshalls stay on even after the crucifixion, until the crosses are brought down on Monday after Easter. It’s like also portraying how centurions guarded the tomb of Jesus only to find it empty after the resurrection,” he said.
Fr. Jun Mercado, parish priest of neighboring Barangay Lourdes Southeast, lamented that a growing number of Catholics have lost respect for sacred objects.
He urged the woman in shorts to come out and explain her side.
“Sin depends on the intention, but the fact is that what she did caused a scandal,” he noted.
This, even as Deputy City Information Officer Deo Sambilay said that Lenten practices here are not promoted primarily as tourist attraction, but as a pilgrimage destination offering the solemnity of the traditional Via Crucis tradition.
