Some looked angry and grumpy, a few looked really menacing. Other looked funny, while there are some which looked downright weird.  During the Holy Week in the Philippines, men in certain towns in the archipelago don these masks and put on tunics and Roman soldier costumes. They roam the streets from Holy Monday to Easter Sunday and re-enact the search for Christ and the eventual capture and suffering of Christ on the way to calvary, and scaring the kids while they are at it. On this week the Roman soldiers are an angry and evil bunch.

This is part of the age old tradition of fulfilling a vow of penance or thanksgiving during the Lenten season. In the island of Marinduque, this has become one grand festival called "Moriones Festival", attracting thousands of tourists and overcrowding the narrow streets of the island's small towns.

Sinturyons of Quezon

A few are probably aware that this tradition is similarly observed in some towns in the Quezon province (especially those in the Bondoc peninsula). The scale may not be as large as that of the Moriones Festival and not widely promoted as a tourist attraction, but it is observed without fail every year. The locals simply call this tradition "Sinturyon".

Some of the masks are handed down from one generation to the other. Sons take up the "panata" or vow from their fathers.


A nice lady in one of the local eateries overheard our conversation about the centurion masks and pointed our group to Boyd, one of the town's sinturyon, who gladly showed us several of his family's mask. Its still a week before the Holy Week, enough time to clean the masks and ready the costumes.

"If you want to see really good masks, go and see Herbert Diaz in Brgy, Andres Bonifacio", Boyd suggested. So we did.

The tattoo artist mask maker

It was drizzling when we reached Herbert's workshop in Andres Bonifacio on the outskirts of San Narciso. The road was muddy and our rented tricycle had trouble with the uphill road.

The soft spoken mask maker welcome us in and lead us to the second floor of his house where several of his "apprentices" are working on the finishing touches on several masks. Most part of the year Herbert is a tattoo artist, but as Lenten season starts he puts on another hat. Orders for masks come from the nearby towns, most especially from the progressive town of Mulanay.

Each mask is a one piece sculpture made of santol wood (cottonfruit). Santol is preferred because its strong but light and resistant to insect borers.

Herbert does the sculpting and the painting (he has been doing this for 10 years already) while the rest of his crew does the other details. Rooster feathers and horses' mane are used for the helmet. Each mask and helmet pair takes at least 2 weeks to make, depending on the design and will set the wearer back 4,500 pesos. A full sinturyon costume will cost at least 10,000 pesos.

Even with the pricey cost of the mask, there is no shortage of orders every year.  Unlike some masks which uses either fiber glass or paper, theirs is full wood and will last for generations.

30 years of mask making

A short walk from the town's center is Mang Ramil Allarey's workshop. He has been creating sinturyon masks for close to 30 years already.

He usually makes a very special mask for himself each year, one that is made to really stand out.  He does not keep them though, as its surely to get sold to some collectors.

So how does Quezon's Sinturyon compare to Marinduque's Moriones? Mang Ramil thinks its very much like the Moriones. Sinturyon is widely celebrated or observed across several towns in Quezon, but without the "commercial" aspects that eventually becomes part of major festivals. Its a much more intimate and personal one.