MICHAEL “XIAO” CHUA
IN Saul Hofileña and Guy Custodio’s Hocus: Cuadricula exhibit at the National Museum of Fine Arts, a painting titled “Ang Pasyon” shows words from the Pasyong Mahal, the book chanted aloud during Holy Week, which was printed by Gaspar Aquino de Belen, along with various stages of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, but you can see local context and local costumes (instead of Roman soldiers, local principalias). In the time of the Quincentennial, the whole exhibit is a critique of colonialism’s use of religion to control the minds of the people. Some even argue that the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines should never be celebrated, even if a lot of Filipinos are Catholic Christians, mind you.