The Moriones of Marinduque

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At Boac Park, we had our first encounter with Marinduque’s signature Moriones Festival.  This religious melodrama, held here and in the nearby towns of Gasan and Mogpog, is the province’s main tourist attraction and  is based on the legend of the blind Roman centurion, Longinus.  Unusual for a Lenten festival, Longinus, not Jesus, is the focus of the week-long Moriones passion play. 

According to an often told legend, Longinus (or Longhino in Tagalog), who is blind in the left eye, was the Roman captain who pierced the heart of Jesus to ensure that He was already dead.  As he pierced the torso of the crucified Jesus with his spear, blood from the wound spurted into his blind left eye, miraculously curing his blindness.  While guarding Christ’s tomb, he also witnessed His resurrection.  From then on, he attained faith and goes around town spreading the news of Christ’s divinity and the testimony of the miraculous healing of his blindness.  The Roman authorities found his testimony seditious and ordered his immediate arrest.  Longinus is forced to flee but, after long searches, is captured not once, but thrice, escaping each time.  He is finally captured, for the fourth time, on Easter Sunday, brought before Pontius Pilate, tried and then executed by beheading. 

The passion play’s origin is uncertain.  Some say it originated from Mexico, being brought here in 1870 by Jesuit Mexican priest Fr. Pedro Santiago to dramatize the power of the Christian faith and to attract the rural population from the interior to participate and be converted to Christianity.  Mompog also   prides itself with being the origin of the Moriones Festival (as well as the Tubunganceremony).  However, the festival is also said to have originated from the town of Gen. Luna in Quezon, located 240 kilometers from Manila and 103.34 kilometers from Lucena City.  Even today, the town reenacts the Centurion at ang Bahay na Kubol during Holy Week with Lenten parades of senturyons and a reenactment of the 14 Stations of the Cross.   

The park was teeming withe the festival’s main characters, the moriones (the word morion relates to the centurion’s helmet, mask or visor).  They wear ingeniously outlandish, homemade Roman soldier costumes (close-fitting jackets, feathered helmets, thong sandals and capes).  The fantastic helmets are decorated with colored paper and tinsel flowers.  The colorful but grotesque masks are carved from a light native wood called dapdap and painted with faces that are neither good or kind-looking.  Longinus’ mask is the one with the blind left eye.  These “Roman” soldiers, mostly antipos (penitents atoning for sins or persons giving thanks for answered prayers, good harvest or cured illnesses) accompany Jesus on the way to his crucifixion.  Longinus is usually played by an old but nevertheless  strong man.
 
At the park, we gamely posed with a number of these moriones.  Other “Roman” soldiers were roaming the streets, beating indigenous kulatangs and chasing or scaring onlookers by thrusting their swords and spears, an act believed to drive away evil spirits.  They also play pranks on people, sing to the ladies or even engage in mock duels with their swords.  Some were riding Roman chariots.
 
Jandy takes a chariot ride

At the park gymnasium, Cheska, Jowel and Yor also joined a “Maskara Mo, Kulayan Mo!”mask painting contest.  Cheska was later informed, by text, that she was among the winners chosen.

Cheska and Jowel with their finished masks
 

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