CULTISM IN THE PHILIPPINES

A Term Paper
Presented to
MS. SHANGRILA GENON-SIERAS
Department of English

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Mindanao State University

Marawi City

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Course
English 2-Gg5 (College English II)
Second Semester, 2016-2017

by
Jumaye Cali Pama
February 2016
 CULTISM IN THE PHILIPPINES

Beginning in the late years of great grandfathers and continuing through the present
decade, we witnessed an extraordinary growth of cultic religious movements.
Thesis Statement: Cults are religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are
considered abnormal or bizarre, in which membership in this community is caused by peer
pressure, psychological manipulation and effects also to psychological problem, mind control or
brainwashing.
I. Definition of Cult
II. Causes of Cultism
A. Peer Pressure
B. Psychological Manipulation
III. Cult Groups in the Philippines
A. Tatlong Persona Solo Dios
B. Tadtad Cult
1. Catholic God’s Spirit Group
IV. Effects of Cultism
A. Brainwashing
B. Mind Control
C. Psychological Problem
V. The Accused Cult Group
A. One God, One Lord, Messiah Ministry
VI. Groups who Oppose Cultism
A. Christian Countercult Movement
B. Church
C. State
 Though there are many anti-cult groups, cults still increase in number. But then, what we
should do is to respect each other’s belief.
Introduction

On one wall of the room was a large banner, two-by-four meters, hanging vertically,

designed like the Philippine flag with its three sections of red, white, and blue, with the three

divine persons portrayed near the center, and below, the twenty-five national heroes with Rizal at

the center. This was a symbol designed by a cult group, “Tatlong Persona Solo Dios”. Some

people also say that cults often are hooded-men, mostly wearing black, book-of-any-sort-

hugging people. Usually, crucifix-wearing with charismatic appeal. Most importantly, they

perform odd rituals.

This term paper aims to:

1. Explain the nature of cults;

2. Inform the readers about some causes of cultism; and

3. Share an example of cult group in the Philippines.

Also, this term paper aims to answer the following questions:

1. What is Cult?

2. What are the some causes of cultism?

3. What are the cult groups in the Philippines?

 The pieces of information presented in this term paper were gathered through library research

and internet surfing only.

Beginning in the late years of great grandfathers and continuing through the present

decade, we witnessed an extraordinary growth of cultic religious movements.

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a new religious movement or

other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally

denoted a system of ritual practices. Some scholars distinguish religious cults from sects by

defining cults as organizations built around a novel spiritual or ethical belief and sects as groups

that hold heretical or unorthodox beliefs derived from established religious doctrines.

The concept of "cult" was introduced into sociological classification in 1932 by American

sociologist Howard P. Becker as an expansion of German theologian Ernst Troeltsch's church-

sect typology. Troeltsch's aim was to distinguish between three main types of religious behavior:

churchly, sectarian and mystical. Becker created four categories out of Troeltsch's first two by

splitting church into "ecclesia" and "denomination", and sect into "sect" and "cult". Like

Troeltsch's "mystical religion", Becker's cults were small religious groups lacking in organization

and emphasizing the private nature of personal beliefs. Later formulations built on these

characteristics while placing an additional emphasis on cults as deviant religious groups

"deriving their inspiration from outside of the predominant religious culture" This deviation is

often thought to lead to a high degree of tension between the group and the more mainstream

culture surrounding it, a characteristic shared with religious sects. Sociologists still maintain that

unlike sects, which are products of religious schism and therefore maintain continuity with

traditional beliefs and practices, "cults" arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.
 This term is the category commonly used in the Philippines with reference to religious

vigilantes.

Cults and Cultism have been a part of the human fabric since almost its inception. More

recently, however, the idea of belonging to a cult has taken on a more sinister meaning. Starting

with the writing of the Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin in 1965, to belong to a cult was to

belong to an aberration of the Christian faith. From that particular perspective other less

theological approaches to cult observation began to arise, whether they were sociological or

psychological.

Typically when addressing the idea of aberrant doctrines it is meant that the cult or cultist

either denies, distorts, or demeans the fundamental aspects which constitute traditional, biblical,

historic Christianity. In other words, it is not uncommon for a cult to deny the reality of the

Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ, or even that Christ came in the flesh at all. Or a cult may

simply distort a fundamental tenet of Christianity. And when denial and distortion do not fit the

description of cult operation, the cult simply demeans a given doctrine, such as when the cult

claims to uphold the Bible as authoritative, only to turn around assert its fallacious nature, and

the necessity of incorporating extra-biblical revelation to clear up any errors or fallacies.

Aside from aberrant doctrines contrary to biblical, historic Christianity, cults often exhibit

other characteristics which set them apart from the mainstream of both religious and secular life.

Often a cult manifests a dynamic, charismatic leader who rules with domineering authority over

his followers. Frequently the leader is involved in, or has been involved in, some kind of

immoral activity, typically as it relates to sexual intercourse.

 Greed, or a lust for money, is another regular trait found among the cults. Some twist

biblical precedence to swindle money out of their followers, while others simply pressure their

flocks into buying services and "technologies" which promise great rewards for their sacrifices.

It is not uncommon for those involved in Scientology to pay thousands of dollars for auditing

sessions which the "church" convinces its adherents will help them traverse to the next

"Operating Thetan" level.

Moreover, a cult can be defined in general as any group of people holding to a common

belief system, but in practice the term cult is often used pejoratively, to refer specifically to 'a

quasi-religious organization using devious psychological techniques to gain and control

adherents.

Membership in cultism is usually caused mainly by peer pressure. There was a study

conducted subjecting to the analysis of the root and causes of cultism in Nigerian campuses and

it has been identified as the strongest.

The youthful students have the tendency to imitate to follow the crowd. The activities of

cultists often attract the fancy of some student who think that these cultists are men of guts

courageous and brave people who command respect and fear on campus. Some student who may

be interested but some of these cult guys as friends gradually begin to pick interest in cultism in

imitation of their peers. Some cultists at times get into the game of mocking their civilian friends

whom they call “liverless” (gutless) boys and girls and few men and Jew women bloody civilian.

They impress it on them, (civilians) which they do not belong to the circle of the bigger boys and

girls the movers and shakers of the campus community. At every opportunity the cultist would

sell interesting stories of their heroic deeds escapades to their peers making them feel all the
more inferior just to attract the civilian to their fold. In some cases, as investigation revealed

cultist do invite neophyte friend to drinking joint where drink are offered free. Once in a while

Indian hemp is shared.

In most cases as discovered in my finding, student who have gone through the same

secondary school tend to end up in the same cult on campus. The first among them to joins the

cult pull others along by selling to them deceptive but enticing stories of the cult.

On the other hand, Philippines, despite of being religious country, still have cult groups

growing. One of these groups is the “Tatlong Persona Solo Dios” founded by Agapito

Illustrisimo.

Marasigan Vicente studied this group by living in their community and by coworshipping

with them in a face-to-face situation, the participants, together with him hoped to understand

more completely the positive elements in the community’s worship and to learn to purify their

own or the community’s religiosity of its negative elements.

According to him, one of these decisions is intellectual conversion. He learned not only

to relativize the meanings and values from his western education, but also respect the indigenous

meanings and values revealed in the symbols of popular piety.

There he met some core members of the Tatlong Persona Solo Dios community-three of

the priestesses and about eight servites (nagseserbisyo), both men and women of varying ages

from twenty to fifty. He told them that he was a Catholic priest from Loyola School of Theology

at the Ateneo de Manila University, that he was interested in Banahaw religiosity. They told him

about their life on Mt. Banahaw,about their religious practices, about the priestesses’ and

servites’ vow of virginity, about their awesome experiences with spirits, about the voice that
guides them in their decisions and protects them from harm, about their dedication to labor on

the soil, in strict obedience to the command to earn sustenance from the sweat of their brow.

On one wall of the room was a large banner, two-by-four meters, hanging vertically,

designed like the Philippine flag with its three sections of red, white, and blue, with the three

divine persons portrayed near the center, and below, the twenty-five national heroes with Rizal at

the center. Before the midnight, he heard chantings from the womens quarters, where the

priestesses and their sacristanas were saying their night prayers. The melody was very plaintive

but the words were hard to understand because they were so soft and so distant.

The central house of the community (The Central) is right beside a stream. Flowing into

this stream is a spring and a limpid pool a few feet deep at the bottom of which is a rocky imprint

of a footstep, the Yapak, object of many Lenten pilgrimages. About a hundred yards

downstream, from the spring, deep inside the cliff east of the stream, there lies a network of of

tunnels, probably old volcanic vents. Their mouths form three caves, of which the largest is

called the Templo. On entering the Templo, one gets the feeling of the majesty of a cathedral.

Enhancing this feeling are the many statues of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin and of Saints, and the

lighted candles burning on the walls during the pilgrimage season. Pilgrims owe this Templo to

the hands of Illustrisimo, the founder of the community and his companions’ hands that, through

the years, scooped out loose soil from the cave and enlarged it to its present majestic dimensions.

Then one day, they told him about the voice that came to them sometime in 1975, telling the

Labindalawahan (The Twelve); the more literate elders of the community, to put down in writing

all the anecdotes they could gather from the surviving contemporaries of their founder, and to

compile these anecdotes and unify them into a history. The voice told them that someday
somebody would come to Kinabuhayan to study their history. And they showed him some ninety

pages of rough typescript entitled “Mga Dakilang Kasaysayan ng Amang Illustrisimo.”

The Samahan symbolizes an attitude in the Rizal of popular imagination.

Another group is the Tadtad Cult.

Tadtad members live in colonies and perform daily rituals such as prayers and meditation.

They spend the rest of their time farming or other means of livelihood. They are classified into

two groups -- the Pulahan (red) and Putian (white) warriors. The Pulahan wear red turbans while

the Putian wear all-white attires. Both groups carry bolos and knives as their basic weapon,

which is used to chop victims to pieces to prevent them from attaining a "second life." Aside

from the bladed weapons, a lana or holy oil is always carried by Tadtad warriors to prepare them

for battle.

Because of its members' supposed invulnerability to bullets, the Tadtad group has

attracted many followers from the Citizens Armed Force Geographical Units. Many CAFGU

members joined Tadtad and participated in paramilitary operations against communist rebels.

The Catholic God's Spirit group is one among dozens of ''tad-tad,'' or ''chop-chop,''

fanatical Christian groups in the southern Philippines, so named for their practice of hacking

their enemies to death. The cults mix Christian teaching with folklore, and believe in pagan

rituals and amulets that supposedly protect them from all harm, including even bullet wounds.

Members' shirts carry magical inscriptions, and they chant prayers over their machetes to

make them powerful. Others steal kneecaps from graveyards to wear as protective amulets.

Many of their original members were Christian settlers from the central Philippines who

migrated to the southern region of Mindanao, coming into conflict with the original Muslim

inhabitants. The Catholic God's Spirit sect was notorious for squatting on large parcels of
farmland in Pangantukan and violently resisting attempts by owners and officials to expel them,

officials said.

Many of the ''tad-tad'' sects have in recent years evolved into criminal gangs that engage

in cattle rustling and illegal logging.

Again, the said cults were called tadtad because of their ritual of cutting their forearm

with a sharp bolo as a test for total absolution after making a confession of sins with their high

priest called Ama or Papa (Father) by his followers. They believed that complete absolution

would make them invulnerable to knife attacks.If the knife leaves a wound on the forearm, it

indicates that the devotee is not yet totally cleanse, and has to go through the same ritual all over

again.

Starting in 1987 a new, unsettling element clouded civilmilitary relations: vigilante

groups that hunted down suspected communists and other leftists. The first and most famous

such group was Alsa Masa (Masses Arise), which virtually eliminated communist influence from

the Agdao slum area of Davao City. The potential for civilians to accomplish what the military

could not aroused official interest.

Cults have their negative aspects to society. Firstly, a cult is a group of people that live in

their own secret society, away from the outside world. As a member of the cult, the person has

given up their personal and social life, which leads to the loss of their freedom. A child, who

is born in the cult lifestyle, is probably, most-likely incessed, because without a social life, they

would end up having children with other family members. Even if a child is born and they are

not incessed, they'd probably be mentally challenged or handicapped in some way, because they

do not have the same social life and interaction of other children their age. Belonging to a cult

involves collective thinking. One higher powered member of this cult will inform the lower
powers about something, and they are all expected to believe this. This way, they become

brainwashed, and only believe the one opinion, and these opinions are usually just ideas which

are created to keep the people from fear. Believing these opinions can be positive or dangerous,

depending on the cult's purpose and beliefs.

On the other side, the controversy surrounding brainwashing and interventionist tactics

such as “deprogramming” has centered largely around the issue of voluntary participation and

commitment of members. Much has been said and written about deprogrammed ex-members

who later claim to have been victims of “mind control” and brainwashing techniques.

Controversial cults are usually based on an identifiable ideology (belief system) and are

internally authoritarian; they are characteristically dominated by a powerful leader and employ

intense interpersonal influence techniques to recruit and control members.

Typically, cult leaders maintain power by claiming that they are the only authority to

which members are accountable-by specifying precise rules for members’ behaviors and proper

attitudes by controlling communication among members, and by punishing members for any rule

breaking. The group’s ideology justifies the leader’s authority and facilitates the leader’s

inducing followers to tolerate their own exploitation.

During recruitment, newcomers often form strong attachments to long-term members.

Those friendships permit members to collect information useful in manipulating recruit’s

feelings of guilt about mistakes they have made, unhappiness with their lives, and distress over

aspects of themselves about which they feel inadequate. The group’s principal focus during

recruitment is to get newcomers to believe that allowing the group to direct their lives will solve

their problems as well as relieve their feelings of guilt or inadequacy.

 Acceptance of the group’s ideology and rules is first a requirement for maintaining

friendships and eventually becomes necessary to avoid psychological or physical punishment.

Punishment can include public humiliation, rejection by peers, hard labor, excessive workloads,

or even physical abuse.

Having joined and accepted the idea that membership will solve their problems, members

experience intense social pressures to conform to whatever the leadership of the group demands.

Members may be required to demonstrate their commitment by rejecting family and outside

friends, giving up outside jobs, or donating financial assets to the group.

Controversial cults tend to share specific attributes. First, the techniques used to gain

commitment from and control over members are psychologically coercive. They can result in

substantial, but temporary belief change. These techniques can be compared to brainwashing.

Second, controversial cults are often alleged to systematically exploit members

financially or sexually.

Finally, some cults generate violence or criminal conduct from members, violence is

frequently directed at nonmembers or ex-members who are labeled as threats to the group’s

leadership.

Meanwhile, there are also those groups who are mistakenly accused to be a cult. One of

these is the “One God, One Lord, Messiah Ministry” in Mindanao State University. It was

founded in 2002 by Vicente Rosales Jr., a graduate of BS Forestry. His connection with the

Christian Educational Services and Spirit and Truth Fellowship International, provided them

writings about Christianity, which led to their distinction from other ministries. The difference in

their beliefs made other ministries label them as a cult.

 And to clear some things, the members of the said ministry are just ordinary students of

MSU. They don’t wear hooded robes to be considered as a cult, or perform odd rituals. They

just pray and worship God.

This ministry is Unitarian in nature. They believe that there is only one God and not

Jesus Christ Himself.

Unfortunately for the cults, many groups oppose cultism. Some of these are called the

Christian countercult movement. It is a social movement of Christian ministries and individual

Christian countercult activists who oppose religious sects thought to either partially abide or do

not at all abide by the teachings that are written within the Bible. The countercult movement

asserts that non-fundamental Christian sects whose beliefs are partially or wholly not in

accordance with the Bible are erroneous.

Countercult literature usually expresses doctrinal or theological concerns and a

missionary or apologetic purpose. It presents a rebuttal by emphasizing the teachings of the Bible

against the beliefs of non-fundamental Christian sects. Christian countercult activist writers also

emphasize the need for Christians to evangelize to followers of cults. Some Christians also share

concerns similar to those of the secular anti-cult movement.

Early studies of church, state, and cult assumed that the church usually supports the state

and, together with the state, opposes the cult. The cult, in turn, is alienated from both.

Sociological wisdom of the past has tended to assume that established churches

support the state but oppose religious deviants. The state as well tends to view established

churches as social

bulwarks of legitimacy and stability but to see cultists as potentially disruptive forces.

In turn, cults usually criticize both church and state for their unholy alliance which
compromises religious purity. Perhaps

this paradigm has some validity in political contexts where church and state are strong

and face little serious challenge to their legitimacy and prestige, thereby exercising

a virtual monopoly on orthodoxy and easily marginalizing political and religious

deviance.

Placing church, state, and cult in a Third World setting can change the strength

and even valence of their conventionally perceived relationships. The organizational

weaknesses of established church and state in such contexts can foster a far more

intimate connection between the two hierarchies. This relationship, when combined

with corruption and repressiveness by the state, can lead to clerical and lay defections

from the church. The weakness of the church, especially in terms of numbers of clergy

in the countryside, can make it more tolerant toward cultism as a more orthodox

alternative to paganism or atheism.

 Conclusion

Cult is a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are

considered abnormal or bizarre. These are organizations built around a novel spiritual or ethical

belief. Some causes of joining to cult groups/cultism are peer pressure, psychological

manipulation and because of how they view a particular group. Some examples of cult groups in

the Philippines are the “Tatlong Persona Solo Dios” and the Tadtad cult.

After making this term paper, the researcher suggests that readers should know more

about the religious fields in the county. They should understand critically the good and bad sides

of each groups. Most importantly, to respect each other’s beliefs despite the contradictions.
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