MARIAN PIETY AND MODERNITY: A SOCIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF POPULAR RELIGION IN THE PHILIPPINES MANUEL VICTOR J. SAPITULA (B.A. Sociology [cum laude], University of the Philippines-Diliman) (M.A. Sociology, University of the Philippines-Diliman) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2013 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its entirety. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in the thesis. This thesis has also not been submitted for any degree in any university previously. _______________________________ Manuel Victor J. SAPITULA 24 January 2013 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is said that an original piece of academic work stands on the shoulders of giants. I say t hat w hile i t doe s, i t a lso s tands on t he s houlders of a ll w ho m ade t he w ork possible with their varying ways of expressing support and encouragement. This piece of a cademic w ork i s a product of years of l aborious t hinking a nd t he formation of enduring bonds w ithin a nd out side t he ha lls of academia. I w ish t o a cknowledge these pe ople, m y f riends a nd c ompanions i n t his j ourney. T his w ork i s l ovingly dedicated to you all… First, to A/P Vineeta Sinha of the Department of Sociology in NUS, my supervisor, whose esteemed expertise, sound advice and support throughout two-and-a-half years of dissertation writing greatly aided in producing an academic piece of work that I can be truly proud of; also to Professor Michael Hill, who supervised me during the first two years of my Ph.D. candidature in NUS; To my mentors and colleagues in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, especially t o P rofs. Ester Dela C ruz, C lemen Aquino, C ynthia Rose B anzon-Bautista and D aniel F ranklin Pilario, C .M., w ho s upported m y aspirations to study overseas; to Profs. Joy Arguillas, Josephine Dionisio and Filomin Gutierrez for their friendly advice and encouragement; To all the f riends I m et in the University of th e P hilippines-Diliman, especially to Benigno Balgos, Rizza Kaye C ases, Nicole C urato, Elma Laguna, Hannah Glimpse Nario and Arnie Trinidad, for their support and encouragement when I was writing this thesis; as well as to Yumi Baluyut, Chin Cabsaba, Glenda Caringal, Paola Infante and Aileen Te-Tan, all of whom wished me the best during our friendly chats over dinner each time I returned to Manila; To all the F ilipino friends I me t in Singapore, e specially to Bubbles A sor, D ina Delias, Enrique and Lizzie Leviste, Shelley Sibya, Joan Sydiongco, Vanessa Suquila, Giorjean Mutuc, Gene Navera, Julius Bautista, Rommel Curaming, Jayeel Cornelio, Cheryll S oriano, Liberty C hee, Glenda Lopez-Wui, Ireyah Basman, Miguel Lizada, Jan Wendell Batocabe, Lou Janssen Dangzalan, Michelle Aguas and Joseph Nathan Cruz, f or m aking S ingapore a “ home away f rom hom e” w ith t heir w it, hum or and brilliance during our numerous coffee breaks, parties and mall trips; iii To a ll m y S ingaporean friends, e specially t o Q uek R i A n, A llan Lee, Christopher Selvaraj, Caryn Tan and Suen Johan bin Mohd Zain, for making Singapore a place of fond r emembrance w ith your c heerful c ompany, s ustained e ngagement and w arm welcome; to m y fellow NUS students Minhye Kim, Hu Shu, Kathryn Sweet, Fiona Seiger, S arada D as a nd T rin T hananusak, w ho at va rious poi nts ha ve s hared t his Ph.D. journey with me; To all the people who helped me during my fieldwork at the National Shrine of Our Mother of P erpetual H elp in Baclaran, P arañaque C ity, especially t o Fr. Victorino Cueto, C.Ss.R. (Shrine Rector); to Ms. Jasmin Jardeleza and all the staff at the shrine, for all the help and support they kindly extended during the data-gathering phase of my r esearch a nd t hereafter; t o a ll t he r espondents i n t he P hilippines a nd S ingapore who kindly gave their time for the interviews; To all the professors and friends I met during my stint in Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI) as a Visiting Fellow, especially to Prof. Michael Herzfeld from the Department of Anthropology; to Visiting Scholar Prof. Jaeyoun Won (Yonsei University), and to co-Visiting F ellows J ia Wenjuan, Liu Y iran, P an Lu, R ie O dajima, R yoko K osugi, Song Bin, Wei Bingbing and Yao Dadui; to Harvard graduate students Chan Wai Kit, Kheng Swe Lim, Ng Jia Hong Ray, Liu Tuo and Swati Agarwal, for their friendship. To all the members of my family: to Tito and Josie, my father and mother; to Ate Me- Ann, Kuya Tibot, Ate Angie, Ate Machu, Kuya Troy and Ate Ances, my six siblings and their partners in life; and to Alexy, Cristina, Arianna, Roni, Joseph, Mia, Emily, Nina, T eetan a nd N ico, m y ni eces a nd n ephews, f or t heir cheerful l aughter, unconditional support and love amidst all the stress of research and writing; And m ost of a ll, t o m y he avenly M other, w ho w atched ov er m e t hroughout t his journey to make sure that I reach the end safely and triumphantly. I visited her shrine in 2008 t o pray that I be given the opportunity to study overseas. She has graciously given this to me, plus a lot more during the last five years. I come to her once more and offer before her feet the fruits of these years of labor and toil. Maraming maraming salamat sa inyong lahat! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration _______________________________________________________ ii Acknowledgments _________________________________________________ iii Table of Contents __________________________________________________ v Abstract __________________________________________________________ viii List of Figures _____________________________________________________ x List of Plates ______________________________________________________ xi List of Tables _____________________________________________________ xii PART ONE: INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS _________________________ 1 Chapter 1: Setting the Context and Focus of the Study _________________ 2 1.1. Setting the context: the Perpetual Help Devotion as popular religion _____ 2 1.2. Popular religion and the socio-cultural motif ________________________ 5 1.2.1. Religion in the interaction of Austronesian and European cultures __ 6 1.2.2. Religion, the colonial heritage and the transition to modernity _____ 8 1.3. Conceptual direction: rethinking the category of “popular religion” ______ 10 1.3.1. Adopting a multidimensional approach _______________________ 11 1.3.2. Popular religion as a form of cultural practice __________________ 15 1.4. Unpacking “modern popular religion” in the Philippines _______________ 17 1.4.1. Religion, modernity and “societal self-understandings” __________ 17 1.4.2. Configuring popular religion in modern society ________________ 20 1.5. Thesis organization ____________________________________________ 23 Chapter 2: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations ______________ 26 2.1. Gaining entry and starting research ________________________________ 26 2.1.1. Developing theoretical and substantive reflexivity ______________ 27 2.1.2. Engaging the field and archive: historical anthropology __________ 32 2.2. Process of obtaining relevant data and locating respondents ____________ 37 2.2.1. Archived materials: devotional letters and Chronicles of the community _____________________________________________ 38 2.2.2. Thematic life history interviews ____________________________ 41 2.2.3. Participant observations in the shrine compound and its environs __ 44 2.3. Emergence of specific research questions and framework for analysis _____ 46 2.3.1. The need for an “ethnographic perspective” ___________________ 47 2.3.2. Adopting “modernity” as a theoretical frame of reference ________ 51 2.4. Nature of data collected and trajectories of sociological analysis _________ 53 Chapter 3: The Perpetual Help Devotion in the Philippines: An Introduction _________________________________________ 57 3.1. Setting the context: the shrine, the community and its environs __________ 60 3.2. The material basis of foundational narratives: problematizing the origins of the Perpetual Help icon _______________________________________ 60 3.3. From a backwater chapel to National Shrine _________________________ 68 3.4. The trajectory of a devotional tradition: prayer texts and their contexts ____ 77 3.4.1. Prayer texts prior to the 1948 Perpetual Novena ________________ 79 3.4.2. The inauguration of the Perpetual Novena devotion in 1948 _______ 81 3.4.3. The revision of the Perpetual Novena text in 1973 ______________ 84 v 3.5. Piety and “social conscience”: social involvement in the Perpetual Help shrine ___________________________________________ 87 3.5.1. A legacy of “engaged devotionalism” ________________________ 87 3.5.2. Crafting a faith-based development discourse __________________ 90 3.6. Concluding synthesis: situating the Perpetual Help devotion analytically __ 92 PART TWO: ANALYTICAL CHAPTERS ____________________________ 95 Chapter 4: The Trajectory of Marian Piety in the Philippines: A Socio-Historical Synthesis ______________________________ 96 4.1. The Perpetual Help Devotion as a form of Marian piety ________________ 96 4.2. Marian piety as local religion in Spanish Philippines __________________ 99 4.2.1. Marian piety to the spread of Christianity in the Philippines _______ 99 4.2.2. The strong identification of Philippine Catholicism with Marian piety ____________________________________________ 101 4.2.3. Marian piety in the Philippines as “local religion” ______________ 103 4.3. Marian piety and the post-1896 Revolution crisis of Philippine Catholicism __________________________________________ 107 4.3.1.