Philippine 'circumcision season' underway after virus delays
Even as circumcision comes under increasing scrutiny elsewhere, with some critics branding it "child abuse", it is rarely questioned in the Philippines and boys face tremendous pressure to undergo the procedure.
Every year, thousands of pre-teens have the operation for free at government or community-sponsored clinics.
But last year, the "circumcision season" was cancelled for the first time in living memory due to the virus outbreak, delaying the milestone for many boys like Gruta.
Left in limbo -- and with their foreskin intact -- the boys have been ridiculed by their male relatives and friends.
After removing their shorts, the youngsters lay down on a table with their legs hanging over the edge and their groin covered by an operating sheet.
Some bit into a facecloth or covered their eyes as they were given a local anaesthetic. The surgeon then went to work.
"I got circumcised because they said I will grow taller and I will get better in sports," said 12-year-old Almer Alciro, who went to another outdoor clinic for his delayed procedure.
Alciro's friends mocked him as "uncircumcised" -- an insult similar to coward in a country where the procedure is a badge of masculinity.
Male circumcision tends to be more common in nations with significant Muslim or Jewish populations, and less so in Catholic-majority places.
Yet around 90 percent of males are circumcised for non-religious reasons in the Philippines, according to World Health Organization data.
https://news.yahoo.com/philippine-circum...15219.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"