NTRA. SRA. DE LOS DESAMPARADOS AND POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES

This paper exhibits narratives on Catholicism and Spanish colonialism in the Philippines – primarily executed by the state and political apparatuses of Spain. Accordingly, colonialism is only an accident to Catholicism and vice-versa due to the inevitability of resistance, which always exists in the dynamic network of power relations. Catholicism and colonialism are not absolutely and essentially inseparable with one another, since conflict between the two has been occurring since the colonial period and until today. There is a clear dynamic interconnectedness between Catholicism and colonialism, but Catholicism is not Spain as how colonialism is not Catholicism. More so, this paper used ethnography with a review of primary and secondary sources of historical data that argues the ‘emergence of consciousness to the socio-cultural and historical narrative of present-day downtown Santa Ana as a precolonial burial site called ‘Lamayan’ with its ancient mythology of ‘Diwata sa Bukal’. Furthermore, the Santa Ana Lao Ma is enshrined in the Taoist temple behind the Santa Ana Church; and the contemporary Filipinization of Ntra. Sra. de los Desamparados seen in Mandaluyong and Marikina are cases of post-colonial resistances that people find today.