Commonwealth vs. Cult in the Conjuration of Law

On the outskirts of the town of Dolores, Quezon province, approximately 200 km outside Manila, lies the foot of Mt. Banahaw, a mountain that has been the site of religious pilgrimages as long as the surrounding communities can remember. Unlike most religious pilgrimages in the Philippines, however, these have never received official sanction or promotion by the Church. Despite early attempts by the Franciscans to penetrate the nearby coastal areas of Laguna de Bay, the density of the forests and inaccessibility of the uneven terrain around the mountain in southern Luzon made it a suitable place for unconverted and recently converted Christians to escape their forced settlement in Christianized communities. In one of the more sensational exposés revealed by Dominican priests in the adjacent province of Laguna during the seventeenth century, religious ministers uncovered numerous caves that were being used as native holy places or simbahan [now the Tagalog word for (Christian) church] for the ritual observance and veneration of ancestral spirits or anito. In the former barrio of Santo Tomás, for example, these ritual feasts culminated in the appearance of a giant snake or sawa (reticulated python, which grow up to 21 ft.), who would “speak” with the catalonan or shaman.

The local residents of the towns around Mt. Banahaw refer to the many “holy sites” [puwesto] visited by religious pilgrims and tourists: the act of conducting a visit to these holy sites is pamumuwesto. These sites display natural wonders and miraculous signs that reinforce the legend of Mt. Banahaw as a Promised Land or New Jerusalem. In addition to these miraculous signs, however, residents and travelers have established makeshift shrines throughout the area, which vary greatly in terms of the attention they attract and dedication to their upkeep. Some mimic the shrines that Philippine families regularly build in or around our houses, with an image of Christ or the Virgin Mary placed in a niche surrounded by cemented rocks. In others, these same images are placed like sentinels guarding entrances to a cave, or in elevated areas around the Sta.