PERFORMING GENDER AND DEVOTION IN THE PEÑAFRANCIA FESTIVAL IN THE PHILIPPINES
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Published:
Dec 31, 2020
Keywords:
cultural performance, Philippine Catholicism, panata, pre-colonial lifeways, surrogation, figuration
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Abstract
The Festival of Our Lady of Peñafrancia is celebrated on a Sunday after the octave of 8 September. Housed at the Peñafrancia Basilica Minore, the image of the Peñafrancia is considered the patroness of the entire Philippine region of Bicol. In the essay, the Peñafrancia is described as a theatricalised devotion where devotees are transformed into a frenzied ensemble that normalises masculinity as a privileged norm. However, digging deeper into the festival’s peculiarity, the normalisation of masculinity is only incidental because the gendering, in fact, idealises and celebrates a figure of a woman. The idealisation and celebration of the woman-figure is asserted to have a precolonial root. In the end, it is argued that the Peñafrancia is a manifestation of a cultural community in which the pre-colonial lifeways of its members are recuperated through expressive bodily movements. At the same time, the legacy of Hispanic Catholicism is decolonised through rearticulating an indigenous past.
Keywords: cultural performance, Philippine Catholicism, panata, pre-colonial lifeways, surrogation, figuration
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Tiatco, S. A. P. (2016). Performing Catholicism: Faith and theater in a Philippine province. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
Tiatco, S. A. P. (2019). Panata, pagtitipon, pagdiriwang: A preliminary contextualization of cultural performances in the Philippines. Humanities Diliman, 16(1), 54–81.
Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. London: Routledge.
Valledor-Lukey, V. V. (2012). Pagkababae at pagkalalae (Femininity and Masculinity): Developing a Filipino gender trait inventory and predicting self-esteem and sexism. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Child and Family Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, United States.
Van der Veen, R., Achterberg, P., & Raven, J. (2012). Contested solidarity: Risk perception and the changing nature of welfare state solidarity. In R. Van der Veen, M. Yerkes, & P. Achterberg (Eds.), The transformation of solidarity: Changing risks and the future of the welfare state (pp. 31–48). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Zarilli, P. (1992). For whom is the king a king? Issues of intercultural production, perception and perception in a Kathakali King Lear. In J. Roach, & J. Reinelt (Eds.), Critical theory and performance (pp. 108–134). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Alcedo, P. (2007). Sacred camp: Transgendering faith in a Philippine Festival. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 38(1), 107-132. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022463406000956
Alcina, F. I. (1975). La Historia de las Islas e Indios Visayas. Madrid: Instituto de Historico de Manila.
Badiou, A. (2003). Saint Paul: The foundation of universalism (R. Brassier, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Basham, R. (1976). Machismo. Frontiers: The Journal of Women’s Studies, 18(3), 126–143. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346074
Bautista, J. (2011). The bearable lightness of pain: Crucifying oneself in Pampanga. In A. Danczak & N. Lazenby (Eds.), Pain: Management, expression and interpretation (pp.151–159). Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press.
Bautista, J., & Bräulein, P. J.. (2014). Ethnography as an act of witnessing: Doing fieldwork on passion rituals in the Philippines. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 62(3–4), 473–498.
Ben-Amos, D. (1972). Toward a definition of folklore in context. In A. Paredes, & R. Bauman (Eds.), Folklore (pp. 3–15). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Cannell, F. (1999). Power and intimacy in the Christian Philippines. Quezon City: The Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Cannell, F. (Ed.). (2006). Anthropology of Christianity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Castañeda, C. (2002). Figurations: Child, bodies, worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.
Dela Paz, C. (2008). Poon at panata: Sining at paniniwala sa Mahal na Senyor ng Lucban, Quezon. Philippine Humanities Review, 10, 105-120.
Dela Santa, E., & Tiatco, S. A. P. (2019). Tourism, heritage and cultural performance: Developing a modality of heritage tourism. Tourism Management Perspectives, 31, 301-309.
De Mentrida, A. (n.d.). Diccionario de la lengua Bisaya Hiligueina y Haraya de la Isla de Panay. Chicago: Photoduplication Service, Newberry Library.
De Morga, A. (1909). Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Madrid: V. Suarez.
Elliott, D., & Culhane, D. (2017). A different kind of ethnography: Imaginative practices and creative methodologies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Garcia, J. N. (2009). Philippine gay culture: From binabae to bakla, silahis to MSM. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Gonzales-Villegas, S. (2008). The myth and piety in Maytinis: A ritual of Christmas celebration in Kawit. Philippine Humanities Review, 10, 139–180.
Guevarra, S. V., Gatchalian, C. F., & Tiatco, S. A. P. (2014). Performing cosmopolitan entanglement in the Philippine pista: Sariaya Agawan Festival. Social Science Diliman, 10(2), 1–29.
Harrison, R. (2010). The Politics of heritage. In R. Harriaon (Ed.), Understanding the politics of heritage (pp. 154–196). Manchester: Manchester University Press in association with the Open University.
Kapchan, D. A. (1995). Performance. Journal of American Folklore, 108(430), 479–508. https://doi.org/10.2307/541657.
Kazubowski-Houston, M., & Magnat, V. (2018). Introduction: Ethnography, performance and imagination. Anthropologica 69 (2), 361 – 374.
McKenzie, J. (2001). Perform or else: From discipline to performance. London: Routledge.
Peterson, W. (2016). Places for happiness: Community, self and performance in the Philippines. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press.
Peterson, W. (2020). Dancing, marching and baton twirling with the Virgin: Performing community at the Peñafrancia festival in the Philippines. Australasian Drama Studies 76, 24 – 61.
Pineda, M. (2005). Do’s and don’ts in the Philippines. Bangkok: Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc.
Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circum-Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia University Press.
Scott, W. H. (1994). Barangay: Sixteenth-century Philippine culture and society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Singer, M. (1972). When a great tradition modernizes: An anthropological approach to modern civilization. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. New York: Routledge.
Tiatco, S. A.P. (2011). Situating Philippine theatricals in Asia: A critique on the Asian-ness / Philippine-ness of Philippine theatre(s). JATI: Journal of Southeast Asia Studies, 16, 133 – 152.
Tiatco, S. A. P. (2016). Performing Catholicism: Faith and theater in a Philippine province. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
Tiatco, S. A. P. (2019). Panata, pagtitipon, pagdiriwang: A preliminary contextualization of cultural performances in the Philippines. Humanities Diliman, 16(1), 54–81.
Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. London: Routledge.
Valledor-Lukey, V. V. (2012). Pagkababae at pagkalalae (Femininity and Masculinity): Developing a Filipino gender trait inventory and predicting self-esteem and sexism. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Child and Family Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, United States.
Van der Veen, R., Achterberg, P., & Raven, J. (2012). Contested solidarity: Risk perception and the changing nature of welfare state solidarity. In R. Van der Veen, M. Yerkes, & P. Achterberg (Eds.), The transformation of solidarity: Changing risks and the future of the welfare state (pp. 31–48). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Zarilli, P. (1992). For whom is the king a king? Issues of intercultural production, perception and perception in a Kathakali King Lear. In J. Roach, & J. Reinelt (Eds.), Critical theory and performance (pp. 108–134). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.