Dear Diary: The Feast Of The Electric Chair

In the 1500's Spain colonized the Philippines and converted the upper and middle islands into Catholicism but the south particularly the Moros as they call themselves, Muslims who fought off the Spaniards didn't convert into Catholicism. But the whole of Philippines were predominantly Muslim in the 1500s until most are converted to being a Catholic.

So the Spaniards influenced the Philippines with our varied language, food, and religious beliefs. Since the major religion here is Catholicism other religious sects sprouted that came from the west since Catholics are not strict on other religions.

Feasts are the one tradition that does not die in this country, people loves it because as the name implies it is an event that you supposedly give thanks into whomever patron Saint your village or town belongs to. In our town the patron saint was John the Baptist so when its feast is in celebration people in town happily showers water into incoming traffic where passengers sit in their cars and if you happen to get the bad-luck you will go home or where you will going wet and possibly angered and miserably uncomfortable.

In our village today they celebrate the feast of Saint Cruz. If you think about it they are either feasting and saying thanks to an inanimate object or a tool for a capital punishment or both.

The "Cruz" or Cross or stake is a way of capital punishment of the Romans, it is not from Jesus. So it is funny to think that if Jesus was killed in an electric chair, we probably have the Feast of Electric chair in my village today instead of the fest of Saint Cruz.

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