Philippine E-Journals

Virgen de los Desamparados/del Pozo: Sacred Space, Syncretism and the Geopolitics of Healing Water

Jose Alain Austria

Discipline: Philippine History

 

Abstract:

 The cult of the Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados of Santa Ana, Manila, is not a homogenous devotion but a tapestry of interpretations: official, populist, and syncretic. The existence of three separate shrines to the Virgin in the former town’s población highlights these differences. Using a crossdisciplinary framework, the paper examines the three sacred spaces in terms of accessibility to the object of veneration, and the “aesthetics of clutter.” The ongoing tensions between the institutional church and devotees caused by the reopening of the Virgin’s well (2011) is presented as a “normal clash” of forces and interpretations, an affirmation that the Desamparados has transcended its religious meaning and has now become a symbol of Santa Ana de Sapa’s cultural identity.