I’M JUST ABOUT DONE |Ruben Enaje, shown in this photo taken on Sunday, swears his body cannot anymore bear the pains of carrying a heavy cross and being nailed on it in the last 33 years since 1986, wishing the April 7 Good Friday rite in Barangay San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga capital of San Fernando to be his last. (PHOTO COURTESY OF GERALD GLOTON)
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines — Ruben Enaje, who has done the longest real-life crucifixion in the country, is resuming the 34th year of his panata (vow) that the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted since 2020, but it may be the last time he would do the Good Friday rite.
“These are already painful,” Enaje, 62, told the Inquirer by phone on March 12, referring to his palms and shoulders. “I wish no one would ask me about the nails. I want to stop,” he said in Kapampangan.
No one has volunteered to continue the vow and take the role of Jesus Christ in the village’s street play, Via Crucis, according to Mat Ryan Dela Cruz, barangay captain of San Pedro Cutud, site of the local Calvary, which is a hill made out of Mt. Pinatubo’s lahar.
Artemio Anoza, a traveling faith healer, began the practice in Cutud in 1962. Ricardo “Legring” Navarro wrote his adaptation of Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) and staged it in 1955. Navarro’s grandson Allan has been staging the play every year.
“If we look for a replacement for Ruben, we need to find someone who has no bad records,” said Dela Cruz.
Dela Cruz’s late father, Remegio, a former village chief, failed to find one when Enaje completed 27 years of being nailed to the cross in 2013.
Enaje, a billboard maker, started the ritual in 1986 as a thanksgiving vow a year after he survived a fall from a building in Tarlac. It was meant to last nine years but he continued with his second set of nine years as a petition for the healing of his daughter’s asthma. The third set was for his wife’s good health.