INQUIRER.net
First Posted February 05, 2008
Religion is the opiate of the
masses - Karl Marx
www.philippines.hvu.nl
Even the most modern Filipinos will not allow two weddings in one
family in the same year for fear of sukob, the belief that both couples will
suffer bad, even fatal luck. To this day even city bred families send their
babies or children to the hilot for unexplained fevers because of “pilay.”
House moving and building are incomplete without the usual parade of cotton,
rice, salt and religious figures – but only after coins have been strategically
embedded into the foundations – after which, ironically, we ask a priest to
conduct a house blessing.
Strangely enough, as exemplified by these house blessing rituals, we
Filipinos have conscripted our Catholicism into this belief system, so that we
even ask our priests to bless other mundane objects like our cars – often to
the consternation of our more modern, Western-oriented priests.
