Apag

Greetings from the Philippines where I'm working at our base in the City of Olongapo. And last week, our housekeeper's granddaughter and I popped out for an absolutely ginormous box of popcorn over a film. When we got to the cinema, we had a choice between the blockbusting John Wick 4 and a far less well-known Filipino film. So Apag it was...

What’s the Plot?

‘Apag’ is an abbreviation of ‘Hapag Kainan’, the Kapambangan (one of the major Filipino languages) term for dining table. Communal dining is a massive part of many Filipino occasions, and the film opens with two unrelated families - one rich and the other poor - going to the same market at the same time to buy food for their respective family feasts.

After scrabbling around the market looking for food they can afford, the poorer father and daughter set off for home in their family's trike - a motorbike with covered sidecar. Then tragedy strikes: the richer son crashes into them in his family's huge pick-up truck.

What happens next? Well, I'm not going to say because I really want you to go and see this amazing film and I don't want to spoil the plot for you! And don't worry if, like me, you are not exactly fluent in Kapambangan: as well as having English sub-titles, the cinematography is as clear as it is beautiful. Shot in the gorgeous region of Pampanga, I was thrilled to see that the jail part of the story appears to have been filmed in the real Pampanga Provincial Jail - a secure environment I've worked in many times before the pandemic.

Raising a case

No, rather than spilling the beans, I'll just explain what happens in general when there's a nasty accident or deliberate wrongdoing in the Philippines. Perhaps surprisingly, decisions about whether or not to prosecute someone are not so much in the hands of the police. No, in the Philippines and many other non-Western countries, a complainant or his/her family must 'raise a case'. Otherwise neither criminal nor civil court proceedings may get underway.

As a European prison doctor who's given evidence many times in my homeland’s criminal courts and less often in its separate civil courts, the Philippines’ mixed criminal and civil system came as a bit of a surprise when I first started working here in 2015. Now though, a few years down the line, I’ve just about got the hang of it - at least, enough to give evidence in a local court case last year. And true enough, when the verdict was announced, the criminal penalty of imprisonment was meted out alongside the civil penalty of the accused being directed to pay compensation to the family of the alleged victim.

And often it really does come down to a question of money. In countries that do not have easy-access benefits systems for those who find themselves in dire straits, the family of a badly injured or deceased breadwinner is often left with no choice other than to 'raise a case' - if they are to get the compensation necessary for their financial survival.

Out for revenge

So, does our film's poorer family get compensation? Are their lives transformed for the better as a result? Does the rich family's son get punished? And how do the various members of the poor family deal with the tragedy? I'll leave you to find out for yourself! (That said, if you do want to read more about the plot, here’s a more detailed review from a regional newspaper.)

But drawing to a close now, there's a saying in British English (as opposed to Taglish - the mixture of Tagalog and English spoken in the Philippines): 'Revenge is a dish best served cold'. And that's certainly the case in Apag.

All the compensation in the world does not soothe a grieving heart. In my career, I've seen so very many men imprisoned for the most atrocious acts of revenge. Yet they aren't made any happier for having taken their pound of flesh. Bitterness takes root on both sides. A vicious cycle of tit-for-tat violence is created. It goes round and round and round and round.

Father forgive them

So what does God think about revenge? He's not a fan. He knows that lack of forgiveness often causes more grief than the original wrong. That's just one of the reasons why Jesus commanded us to forgive:-

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
(Matthew 18:21-22)

And let's not forget that small but golden nugget of the Easter story, when Jesus put his teaching into practice for himself:-

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals - one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
(Luke 23:33-35)

If Jesus could forgive his torturous executioners, then we can at least try to forgive our transgressors. It isn't a passive, easy choice. No, it is a painful, hard act of the will. But let’s not forget that our Lord Jesus knows just how hard forgiveness can be. And so whenever we're tempted to lash out, we can take our hurt and pain to him - one who can empathise with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15) - in prayer:-

 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: “‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’”
(Luke 11:1-4)

Dr Rachael Pickering is our Chief Medical Officer

PS If you’ve found this article helpful or enjoyable, please consider praying for and/or donating towards our work.

Easter suffering down the ages

This Easter in the Philippines

This Easter I’m in the Philippines, the most incredibly beautiful and diverse South-East Asian archipelago nation with complex religious traditions partly rooted in Roman Catholicism. Since 2015 and barring the first two years of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I’ve spent approximately a fifth of my working life based out here. I even have a second home here.

I absolutely love the Philippine people. Their warmth and respect are second to none. And although I still have much to learn, I’m now very comfortable with many of their perspectives and customs - save for one…

Volunteers for flagellation

Self-flagellating Filipino

This is the third or fourth Easter I’ve celebrated out here. And although I appreciate much about the Roman Catholic Church’s celebration of Easter, one thing I have not adjusted to is the non-orthodox yet widespread practice of voluntary self-flagellation and even voluntary crucifixion every Good Friday.

This practice jars with me most particularly because I have expertise in the detection and prevention of torture and ill-treatment, and so sometimes I have to examine torture victims who have been flogged. And a severe flogging was just part of the barbaric execution method inflicted on Jesus at the original Easter…

The original Easter in Israel

The Roman form of crucifixion was the ultimate control mechanism: feared by everyone within the Roman Empire, it acted as both deterrent and punishment…

Victim of crucifixion

The very first Easter saw God the Son, Jesus suffering and dying at the hands of others. He did so not because he wanted to - he wasn’t a masochist. Rather, he begged God the Father to spare him from his forthcoming ordeal:-

My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.
(Matthew 26:39)

But it was not to be. Jesus was arrested, tried, sentenced, tortured and executed. This makes him history’s most famous torture victim.

SENTENCED FOR US

So, why was Jesus sentenced to death? Not because God the Father was a cosmic child abuser - a charge levelled by some modern-day liberal theologians. No, Jesus was executed in our place for our sins.:-

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
(Isaiah 53:5)

All we have to do is accept this incredible gift…

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

… and follow the teachings of Jesus, our incredible Saviour:-

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
(Matthew 16:24)

With no disrespect intended, try as I might, I cannot understand why anyone who has truly understood Easter would perform self-flagellation. As I often say, ‘Jesus was tortured and died - so we don’t have to’.

Taking up our cross

So what did Jesus mean when he said we should take up our cross and follow him? Did he mean that we should self-harm every Easter? No! Did he mean that we should look for ways to goad those who are in a position to torture and execute us? Again, no!

No, by ‘follow me’ he meant that we should decide to follow his teachings. And by ‘take up his cross’ he meant that committing to follow him was not a nice, vague concept but a profound and self-denying lifestyle decision.

And yes, both then and now, following Jesus may lead to punishment and death. It is thought that the vast majority of Jesus’ original disciples met violent ends. But they did not volunteer to suffer and die, and they did not hurt themselves. No, they merely carried out their Lord’s final set of earthly instructions - with fatal consequences:-

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)

Almost two thousand years later, crucifixion is rare (though still crops up from time to time) and so thankfully I have yet to be asked to examine a case - fatal or otherwise. Yet there are many other ways to become a martyr…

WarTime Easter in Germany

The date on which Easter is celebrated fluctuates, as it is tied to the lunar rather than solar calendar. And by macabre coincidence, this Easter Sunday (9th April 2023) marks the 78th anniversary of the 1945 martyrdom - just eight days after that year’s Easter Sunday - of a great Christian hero…

Victim of hanging

Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(Image provided by Encyclopædia Britannica)

Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was German born and raised. Yet he steadfastly opposed Nazi dictatorship and championed Christian discipleship, despite the unwelcome yet inevitable cost.

He participated in rescuing Jews. He refused to cooperate with the Nazification of the German Church. And he was linked to attempts to overthrow Hitler.

He didn’t want to suffer and die. Even though he was doing these incredibly dangerous things, which he knew risked capture and death, he was also planning for the future of the church after World War II. He even planned for his personal future - by getting engaged to be married!

Finally though, the inevitable happened: he was arrested in April 1943. He spent the last two years of his life in detention. Firstly, he was put in Tegel Prison, Berlin awaiting trial. Next he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. And then finally he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp for a quick show trial. He was hanged the very next day, on 9th April 1945, just one month before Germany surrendered. During his detention he suffered both physically and psychologically; the manner of his death by hanging was also possibly more cruel than some biographies state.

During his years as a prisoner he lived a life devoted to Christ, sharing God’s offer of salvation with fellow prisoners and prison officers. He also wrote fervently to friends, family, and his fiancée. Posthumously his letters and some of their replies were compiled into a well-known book, Letter and Papers From Prison. Reading these letters is both encouraging and humbling.

CONSIDERING the suffering

Bonhoeffer had lived experience of Matthew 16:24. He also witnessed much suffering of others, and during his imprisonment he wrote:-

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
(Letters and Papers from Prison)

How true. Yet how often do we fail to evaluate people in light of their past, their trauma and their suffering, rather than reacting directly to their words and behaviour?

JamMING The Wheel

Also whilst behind bars, Bonhoeffer wrote what may be his most famous quotation:-

Medieval torture wheel

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
(Letters and Papers from Prison)

This sentence encapsulated all that he lived for. He did not simply write and teach on the morals and ethics of the Christian life. He lived it too. His firm belief was not just in helping those crushed by the weight of this world’s injustices, but in radically intervening for the oppressed and averting the course of injustice so as to stop ‘the wheel of injustice’ from moving on to crush others in the future. And it cost him his life.

Future easters behind bars

Logo of our expertise and advocacy services

As a Christian faith-inspired organisation with a heart for detainees, we are inspired by the life and words of Bonhoeffer. All too often, we discover modern-day victims with wounds that need bandaging and wheels that need jamming.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
(Proverbs 31:8-9)

May God bless you this Easter.

Dr Rachael Pickering, adapted from the 2019 article co-authored with Dr Esme MacKrill

PS we always welcome prayers and donations for the Gerry Serrano Centre.

Crucifixion: the ultimate form of torture

Today, Good Friday, is recognised by Christians around the world as the anniversary of Jesus being crucified. And so, to honour this, we are taking a short break from our series pegged around the alleged ill-treatment of Ghislaine Maxwell. Instead, we are examining crucifixion.

What is crucifixion?

Crucifixion is a torturous form of execution, more associated with history than the modern day. Its name is derived from the Latin words crucifixio and crucifixus, meaning to fix to a cross. Crucifixion crosses were made of wood and came in a variety of shapes and sizes though they generally had both vertical and horizontal beams that slotted together. That said, it is also possible to crucify someone without an actual cross, by attaching their spread arms and their feet to any suitable surface such as a tree trunk.

What are its origins?

Though it originated in other societies, the Roman Empire perfected crucifixion as a form of torture. Roman crucifixion was a long, slow journey to death with the maximum amount of fear, pain and other suffering along the way. It was the ultimate threat to those who might be tempted to step out of line.

Who got crucified?

In general, Roman crucifixion was the fate of the lowliest in society. It was inflicted upon slaves, peasants and criminals, but rarely to Roman citizens. It was famously deployed on slaves in 71 BC when 6000 followers of the rebel slave leader Spartacus were crucified along the Via Appia - the road extending south from Rome, the very heart of the Roman Empire. And zipping forward a couple of generations to history’s most famous crucifixion, on the original Good Friday in 30 or 33 AD, Jesus was crucified between two thieves:-

When they [the Romans] came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals - one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
(Luke 23:32-34)

Over the next few years, it is thought that many of Jesus’ original followers were crucified - as punishment for spreading the message of Christianity. And during the subsequent two millennia in certain parts of the world, Christians - that is, followers of Jesus Christ - have sometimes suffered the same fate as their Lord.

Even today, crucifixion occasionally pops up in the news as having been used as a method of killing someone or as a means of inflicting extreme non-fatal violence.

Flogging and mocking

There is no doubt that crucifixion is a torturous form of execution. But even before Jesus picked up His cross and walked to His execution site, He was tortured in other ways.

It was not uncommon for the Romans to beat and maim their victims prior to crucifying them. A whip of three leather tails studded with metal balls and pieces of bone was used to inflict deep wounds across the condemned person’s shoulders and back. These wounds exposed muscle and could even damage internal organs. Many victims did not survive this ordeal - and so at least were spared the actual cross.

And along with the physical torture He endured, Jesus was also tortured psychologically:-

He [Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor in Jerusalem] had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified…They [the Roman soldiers] put a purple robe [a symbol of royalty] on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.  And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!”. Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
(Mark 27:15-20)

Crucifixion as SLOW torture

If a condemned person managed to survive his pre-crucifixion flogging, he would then have the ignominious task of carrying his own cross - or at least its horizontal crossbeam - to his site of execution. Jesus was so weak after His flogging that He had to have assistance carrying His cross. But then He finally arrived at Jerusalem’s execution site, which was named Golgotha - the local word for skull - because it sat on top of a rockface that looked remarkably like the front of a skull and can still be seen today. And there He was nailed to His cross:-

This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
(Acts 2:23)

His cross was then set upright in a hole in the ground, and He was left to hang - suspended by His nailed limbs - until He died. And today, various forms of suspension remain popular methods of torture.

A Roman crucifixion victim’s death could be a long time coming, taking up to several days. And so, as happened in the Easter Story, an executioner would sometimes inflict further injury to hasten death:-

Now it was the day of Preparation [for the Jewish feast of the Passover], and the next day was to be a special Sabbath [rest day]. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
(John 19:31-34)

Many medical papers have tried to understand the pathology underlying death from crucifixion, noting it was likely multifactorial and included the after-effects of flogging, haemorrhage and dehydration causing hypovolaemic shock, and asphyxia caused by impairment of respiratory movement. Regardless of the exact mechanism of death though, it is surely an excruciating way to die.

Why was jesus crucified?

As a Christian faith-inspired organisation, we recognise the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made for us at Easter, giving His life for us. The pain He endured physically, spiritually and mentally are more than any human being should have to bear. But for our sake He, God on earth, entered our broken world in human form to die so that we wouldn’t have to:-

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!
(Philippians 2:6-8)

If you’d like to know more about why Jesus came to Earth and died on the cross, you might like to look at this simple cross-shaped leaflet, which we created especially for detainees wanting to understand the Easter Story:-

Click image to download PDF

But What about now?

On this Good Friday, as every Good Friday, we remember one sobering episode of barbaric violence from the First Century. Still, although it does still occasionally occur, these days crucifixion is seen as old fashioned. In its place, other - supposedly more ‘modern’ - forms of torture and execution now wreak havoc around the globe.

Why oh why do we human beings continue to inflict torture and cruel, inhuman & degrading treatment on each other? It seems that nothing will stop it. Indeed, it is tempting to think that opposing torture & ill-treatment is a completely futile endeavour!

But it’s not.

Just as Good Friday was not the end of Jesus’ story, we should not give up hoping that torture & ill-treatment will end some day. In defeating death, Jesus paved a way for our reconciliation with God and everlasting life with Him. Through that we have genuine cause for hope in a better world and a better life to come. We can look forward to that day:-

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
(Revelation 21:4)

Still for now, whilst still having one eye on the future, we and all other Christians must live in day-to-day obedience with God’s mandate to fight on behalf of the vulnerable:- 

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed…
(Isaiah 1:17)

And this includes victims of torture & ill-treatment.

Happy Easter.

Dr Esme MacKrill with Dr Rachael Pickering

PS If you’d like to support our anti-torture & ill-treatment work, we welcome donations towards the Gerry Serrano Centre.