MANILA, Philippines - On Holy Week, many of the country?s traditional health practitioners go through rituals meant to enhance their healing powers. These include intense prayers, retreats and pilgrimages to sacred places, including Mt. Banahaw, where they gather medicinal plants believed to be more potent because of Christ?s ultimate sacrifice

ON the surface, Holy Week in the Philippines seems to be a time of penitence and atonement for one?s sins. But look hard enough and you?ll realize that it?s actually a week revolving around power relationships between humans and the supernatural, God in particular.

Penance in itself revolves around power. The Filipino recognizes the power of Christ?s sacrifice, culminating in his crucifixion, to redeem humanity. The Filipino term used for redemption is pagtutubos, the same term we use when we reclaim something from the pawnshop. Sin is seen as a debt, with Christ getting us out of it. In turn though, we are now put in a position where we owe Christ, and need to return our debt. Penitential activities are meant to show our utang na loob, a gratitude expressed in acts that show some kind of payback.

But there are other activities during Holy Week that are not quite penitential; instead, they are meant to negotiate with God to grant an appeal. The term panata, a religious vow, is used here but the English translation is not that accurate, because it suggests an action, completed here and now. In practice, a panata is more of a bargaining. One proposes a ?deal? with God: I will perform a severe act of hardship or self-mortification because I need you to heal my mother. Or I?ll put myself to this extreme sacrifice to get my son?s overseas job application approved.

The bloody self-flagellation and crucifixions in Pampanga are the most well-known, the ?penitents? (the term is not quite correct since they are not doing penance) having all kinds of appeals, most of which are of this world, rather than of the spiritual. I remember some years back a ?GI baby? whose appeal to God in return for his sacrifice was to put him in contact with his American father, who had served in one of the military bases.

The Pampanga self-flagellation and crucifixions are seen as the most powerful rituals because they imitate Christ, particularly in his acts of carrying of the cross and being crucified. This takes on the meaning of ?Kalbaryo,? which has come to mean personal hardship at its most extreme.

The panata involves faith, a kind of ?goodwill payment.? Many of these devotees will perform their sacrificial acts each year for many years, even if their wish has not been granted. In fact, even when it looks like their appeal will never be granted, they will often accept this as God?s will. Now, that?s amazing faith, and grace.

For those who do get their wishes, there is all the more reason to continue with the sacrifices, an expression of gratitude or utang na loob.

There is another aspect to Holy Week that may be less familiar to many Filipinos, but which anthropologists and other social scientists have been studying for many years. The mass media has given prominent coverage to Catholic religious faith healers like Fr. Fernando Suarez and Fr. Corsie Legaspi and the Catholic women?s congregation, Religious of the Virgin Mary.

But there are also hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of traditional healers out there who do their own versions of faith healing, and for them, Holy Week is an important time to rejuvenate.

It is during Holy Week when many of the country?s traditional health practitioners go through rituals that are meant to enhance their healing powers. This includes intense prayers, retreats and pilgrimages to certain places seen as sacred, usually mountains like Banahaw. The trips to mountains will often include a gathering of medicinal plants, with beliefs that these plants are more potent at this particular time.

All these practices, a kind of recharging of traditional healing powers, revolve around the idea that Holy Week is a special time. The week is seen not just as a commemoration but a re-living of Christ?s passion, death and resurrection, and so the week is seen as being imbued with power. Good Friday is the most ?powerful? day, because this is when Christ goes through his ultimate sacrifice.

The traditional healers? prayers and pilgrimages are more of an enactment, an imitation of Christ, so that they too may become like the powerful Christ, especially in terms of healing powers. This should not be surprising since the New Testament accounts of Jesus? ministry often refer to healing. Christ then is seen as a faith healer.

Filipino Christianity?Catholic or Protestant?carries healing as a central theme, both in terms of the spiritual and the material. Holy Week allows a convergence of both the spiritual and the material, a time not just to be cleansed of sin, but also of physical suffering and afflictions. This is shown in a folk Christian legend, commemorated in many parts of the Philippines but especially in the Moriones of Marinduque, where Longines, a Roman centurion guarding Christ at the cross, is healed of blindness when he pierces Christ?s body with his spear, and blood spurts out. The sacrificial blood saves humanity even as it restores sight to the centurion. That story encapsulates how we Filipinos look at Holy Week as a Healing Week.