During the Semana Santa or the Lenten season, two types of spirit, figuratively that is, enter the Filipino: the more fun beach-driven family vacation, or the more serious spiritual-driven one.
We have to note though that these spirits may come as one or as in most cases, as both, depending on how our rational or irrational mind makes sense of things. The entrance if not an encounter with spirits, literally that is, does not perplex Filipino rationality. In a culture touted to be highly spiritual, an encounter with or experience of the spiritual realm is a-given.
In the film Himala, considered to be the Best Film of All Time from the Asia-Pacific Region by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2008, the discourse on spirits or spirituality, if you may, takes a particularly Filipino flavor: the marriage of religion or religious expressions with poverty. Though very tempting as I am a self-declared fan-fanatic of the actress Nora Aunor, I will hold my horses to delve on the merits of Aunor’s acting prowess or to the cinematic brilliance of this 1982 film, I will instead focus the microscope on the spiritual cum social discourse that the film offers.
“Walang himala! Ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao, nasa puso nating lahat! Tayo ang gumagawa ng mga himala! Tayo ang gumagawa ng mga sumpa at ng mga diyos!” (There is no miracle! Miracles are in people’s hearts, in all our hearts! We are the ones who make miracles! We are the ones who make curses, and gods).
The above iconic and the most remembered lines were delivered in the film’s climactic scene, where the character faith healer Elsa played by Aunor was killed by a gunshot. The film did not off er who actually killed the faith healer Elsa, but the film was clear as for the reason of the killing: people could not accept the fact that their hope if not their faith was after all a big fat lie. Given the context of their poverty-stricken and miserable existence and because ultimately faith healer Elsa dashed all their hopes or faith, like any religious fanatic or to use a more contemporary term—fundamentalist, the declamation “walang himala” was too-much to bear. The messenger faith healer Elsa, therefore, had to die.
Perhaps, the most heinous parallel-comparison in our contemporary existence of these fundamentalist haters, ideologues, or in some instances believers are that they are capable of violence, or killing to be precise, in unimaginable kind and scale. The most recent one, and not necessarily the last, is the massacre that took the lives of 50 innocent people in Christchurch City in New Zealand. Although, in retrospect, these massacres done in the name of ideology, belief or faith have been with us throughout human history.
More than the aesthetic and dramatic value of Himala’s final scene, faith healer Elsa’s heartwrenching declaration is not only true to the materially poor characters played out in the film, but also jumps out in our day-to-day modern or postmodern existence, and in fact, should find meaningful resonance to every contemporary reflecting Filipino, materially poor or not.
In the context of the Lenten season, some existential if not spiritual questions beg for answers: Are miracles true? Is Jesus Christ, Allah, Krishna or any deity possessing supernatural powers for real or are they, as the scientific community declared them to be: the combined product of the prolific imagination, need and tradition of people? If we cut out the existence of a/ the God/god(s) in our lives, will life, as we know it, be meaningless? Will people become demonic if they do not have the presence of a deity, the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas or any sacred texts in their lives?
If we will take religion aside to finally and seriously consider Science or the “factual finds” of the scientific community, we can probably have a repeat heart wrenching Elsa-like scene in our lives, probably more sober, but nonetheless painful and divisive, given our cultural background and religious exposures. Indeed, through the centuries, the scientific community, much like the religious community, has answered the above existential questions. And the evidences are not in favor of the existence of Jesus, Allah, Krishna or any deity.
Just recently, two significant factual finds in a long and innumerable series of discoveries by the scientific community stare us in the face. There is that spellbinding captured photo model of one of the billions of black holes believed to be at the center of most if not all the galaxies of the universe. This black hole is 55 million light years away (whew!) from the planet earth and resides in a neighboring Messier 87 galaxy. This newly-discovered black hole is named Pōwehi (pronounced poe-vay-hee), a Hawaiian mythological term meaning “embellished dark source of unending creation”.
And even closer to home, there is that gripping archaeological find by a combined group of scientists of another unknown member of the “homo” branch of the human family tree. These human bones are now considered the oldest archeological artifacts in the evolutionary history of the hominins. They existed some 50,000 to 67,000 thousand years ago. The human bones are now known scientifically as Homo Luzonensis, although like the black hole, they are given a local name—Ubag, a term derived from a mythical caveman in Northern Luzon.
For all intent and purposes, these two scientific finds strengthen science’s position of the evolution of life, as against creation advanced by religion. Armand Salvador Mijares of the College of Science of the University of the Philippines, who is one of the leading scientists in the discovery of Ubag, declared: “The discovery of H. Luzonensis highlights the importance of SE Asia as an evolutionary region, and sets up the Philippines as a major area for evolutionary research.”
Before we get lost in the forest of things, note that the truth called “evolution” runs in all the narratives of these two significant discoveries. Not that the divisive discourse of evolution versus creation still matters among the scientific community. The divide, using logical reasoning and verifiable evidences, has long been decided in favor of evolution. However, the implication is lost, if not unacceptable still to most of the religious community who are still hanging on to the creation stories. Evolution, after all, is not only an inconvenient truth, but a painful one. Evolution points out to the cancellation of the existence of a/the God/ gods, and reduce them to the corner of a myth. God or gods did not create us or the universe, we created God or gods, as faith healer Elsa pointed out.
For all intent and purposes, we also have to note before we get lost in the forest of things, that religion still plays a powerful narrative in changing peoples’ lives, if not providing the essential ingredient of life’s meaning to many if not all of us. Every Lenten season of every year, many if not all our lives are on a halt to reckon and/or rekindle our trajectories towards meaning if not towards a/the God/god(s), quite often not alone but in the company of our loved ones.
Before this article reaches publication, I for one, should find myself not only in the company of loved ones, but going through the necessary Lenten halt, reading my already prepared books: Philip Yancey’s “Rumors of Another World”, Jack Mile’s “A Biography of God”, Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”, and a book given to me as a gift by a dear friend, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel Van Der Kolk”.
And I have to note that while working on this article, I watch on my television set the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Yes Rita, for whatever reason, this deep sorrow engulfs me like no other.
