Christianity in the Philippines

[4] Many Filipinos in 2021 celebrated 500 years of Christian presence in the Philippines[5] with Pope Francis commemorating March 16, the day Magellan introduced Catholicism with a mass on Limasawa, Leyte.

Most Philippine communities, with the exception of the Muslim sultanates in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, were fairly small and lacking in complex centralised authority.

Magellan (or one of his men) was able to cure or help the young boy, and in gratitude Humabon allowed himself, his chief consort Humamay, and 800 of his subjects to be baptised en masse.

Sultanates in Mindanao retained the Islamic faith, which had been present in the southern Philippines since some time between the 10th and 12th century, had slowly spread north throughout the archipelago, particularly in coastal areas.

Many historians have claimed that the Philippines peacefully accepted Spanish rule; the reality is that many insurgencies and rebellions continued on small scales in different places through the Hispanic colonial period.

After the service, worshippers eat or buy a breakfast of traditional delicacies that are sold in churchyards, the most common being puto bumbóng and bibingka.

Processions are a staple throughout the week, the most important being on Holy Wednesday, Good Friday (where the burial of Christ is reenacted with a town's Santo Entierro image) and the joyous Salubong that precedes the first Mass on Easter Sunday.

Fasting and abstinence is undertaken throughout the season and traditional taboos are enforced on Good Friday, usually after 3:00 p.m. PHT (UTC+8) - the time Christ is said to have died - all through Black Saturday until the Easter Vigil.

Television and radio limit broadcasting hours and air mostly inspirational programming alongside the days' religious services; newspapers are also on hiatus, while shopping malls and most restaurants are closed to allow employees to return home.

As with Christmas and Lent, most Filipinos also return home in the period (the third most important in the calendar), but with the main intent of visiting and cleaning ancestral tombs.

Communities also hold the Santacruzan, which is part-procession honouring the finding of the Cross (on its old Galician date), and part-fashion show for a town's maidens.