With eyes closed, Philippine flood survivor Enrico San Juan clutched at the feet of a statue of the crucified Christ, his forehead firmly pressed on its knees.After about a minute of silent prayer at a Roman Catholic church in Manila, San Juan, 45, kissed the statue's feet and made the sign of the cross.
"God is my family's only hope," the odd-job labourer told AFP. He had saved enough money to commute from his flooded home in the devastated Taguig district across town to the popular Baclaran Church for Sunday mass.
"We lost everything, and my house is still partially under water but I'm still thankful to God that my family is safe," he said, echoing a refrain among survivors of the floods that swamped Manila and its environs on September 26.
As the Philippines deals with the storm and a typhoon exactly a week later that combined killed more than 300 people, many are clinging to their Christian faith once again for comfort and, most of all, hope.
It was a theme that resounded in religious sermons and inspirational messages on Sunday, when millions of the faithful in Asia's only largely Christian nation trooped to churches nationwide.
"To our countrymen... God loves you. God will not forsake you," said Father Anton Pascual of the Roman Catholic charity Caritas Manila on local radio.
"Don't lose hope because these trials are challenges that will make us all the more cling to God, and to unite as brothers and sisters, and to unite as one people."
Similar refrains were echoed at a "special prayer" for flood survivors at a service in Manila's Santo Domingo church.
"In the midst of their suffering, may they feel the compassion of God through people like us," intoned the parish priest there.
While Roman Catholic and Protestant churches offered special prayers for the victims, many of their members were actively involved in accepting and distributing relief goods.
With the Southeast Asian archipelago lying in earthquake and typhoon belts, and with active volcanoes, deadly natural disasters are almost commonplace for its 92 million people.
But while the frequency of the tragedies does nothing to dilute the grief for victims, the church undoubtedly plays an important role in healing.
"We Filipinos are very interesting -- even if our houses are destroyed by a typhoon, we are still smiling," Pascual said.
"We still have that joyful disposition and this is because of our faith. We believe that God is with us and will not forsake us."
Christianity, in particular Roman Catholicism, was introduced to the Philippines by Spanish colonisers in 1521.
The Americans, who replaced the Spaniards nearly 400 years later, introduced the Protestant faith.
Both colonisers built missionary schools that trained the older generation of Filipinos. Church-run schools are among the best in the country today.
Outside of the government and the military, the church is probably the most organised institution in the country and one which has the widest grassroots presence.
Filipinos have also often invoked God during times of man-made crises.
Priests and nuns were at the forefront of the struggle against dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980s. The archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime Sin, played a vital role in a peaceful revolution that toppled Marcos in 1986.
In that "People Power" revolt, nuns clutching rosaries were among the multitude that knelt in front of tanks ordered by Marcos to crush the uprising after a crowd massed along a highway to support rebel military leaders.
After Marcos was ousted, the Roman Catholic church erected a giant statue of the Virgin Mary on the street where the revolution was staged, believing she had intervened for the people.
Monsignor Pedro Quitorio of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines said, however, that looking to a supernatural being during calamities or crises was not unique to Filipinos.
"When people suffer they turn to God.... It is native to the human race," he said.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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SIC: AFP