Filipino devotees had themselves nailed to crosses Friday to remember Jesus Christ's suffering and death an annual rite rejected by church leaders in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Filipino people were nailed to crosses in villages in some province's in Philippines to mark Good Friday.
The event Friday drew more than 10,000 Philippine and foreign spectators.
A farming village where devotees dressed in robes and tin crowns walked to a dusty mound carrying wooden crosses on their backs. At the mound, men nailed their hands and feet to the crosses.
Among the devotees, a 49-year-old sign painter who was nailed to a cross for the 24th time as his way of thanking God for his survival after falling from a building.
And a 34-year-old rice cake vendor, was the lone female devotee to be nailed to a cross this year. It was her 14th time.
She said she started when she was 18 and has taken part in the annual rites on and off to seek God's help in saving her ill grandmother and now her younger sister, who is suffering from cancer. She has faith that God will take care of her and her family.
Similar rites took place in nearby Bulacan province, while in other parts of the country, half-dressed, barefooted flagellants walked the streets, whipping their bloody backs with pieces of wood dangling from ropes as a way to atone for sins.
Church leaders reject such practices. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines said the real expression of Christian faith during Lent is through repentance and self-renewal, not flagellation or crucifixion.
About 80 percent of the Philippine population of more than 90 million are Roman Catholic
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