Moriones Festival 2013 Schedule of Activities

Moriones Festival is an annual religious festival held during Holy Week (starting Palm Sunday up to Eastern Sunday) in my home province- Marinduque. The festival re-enacts the seven-day search for  Longinus. Men and women wearing mask and costumes replicating the looks of a Roman Centurion are called Moriones/Morions. They usually roams in the streets searching for Longinus, and  also serve as their way of "Panata"(devotion) or "Pagpapahirap sa Sarili"(penitence). Moriones came from the  Spanish root-word  morion which means mask. 

The highlight and final event of the festival is the Pugutan- a theater presentation featuring the story of Longinus - Roman centurion who was blind in one eye, was one of the soldiers present at Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. When Longinus plunged his lance into the side of Christ to check if He was dead, a drop of Christ's blood splashed onto his blind eye and its sight was restored. Later, according to some versions of the legend, Longinus was also one of the guards at Christ's tomb, and was a witness to the Resurrection. These miracles impelled him to convert to Christianity, earning the ire of the authorities and leading to his arrest and execution.