IN a bid to create a world record, health officials in the Philippine city of Marikina yesterday mutilated around 1,500 young boys at a mass circumcision “party”.
Said Vice Mayor Jose Fabian Cadiz of this barmy bid:
A boy suffers ritual mutilation in the Philippines
We applied for the Guinness Book of World Records, and we are recording everything so we can send all the data to them and hopefully it will be recognised.
The day-long “circumcision party” was staged to provide a safe, free procedure for a rite of passage that most local males undergo as preteens. Surgery would normally cost at least $40 (£25) in private hospitals.
Some boys cried in their mothers’ arms while others bit their shirts to stifle sobs as doctors carried out the surgery on dozens of makeshift operating tables inside a sports stadium in Marikina city east of Manila. Outside, other boys lined up to await their turn.
One boy who had just finished the surgery bragged:
I’m a big boy now.
There is apparently no religious foundation for this irrational obsession with circumcision in the overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines, which makes the practice even more bizarre.
Pre-adolescent and adolescent boys traditionally are circumcised during summer school break from March to May. In rural areas, the surgery is sometimes performed by non-doctors using crude methods.
In 2008 a group of surgeons in the Philippines questioned the medical benefits of the tradition.
Nelia Tabiolo, mother of a 10-year-old boy, had to drag her son to a makeshift operating room in Olongapo where a free circumcision clinic was being held. This was the second time her son has tried to run away from the procedure.
Said Tabiolo:
I want (my son) Jonathan to be circumcised because I want him to become a man and have good health.
Situations like this led a group of doctors to question the basis of routine circumcision in the country.
Said Dr Jeffy Guerra, Chief Resident, Surgery Department, Manila Hospital:
You are mutilating boys when they undergo circumcision. This is a traumatic and painful experience for everyone who eventually undergoes circumcision. If you weigh the benefits, risks and costs of doing routine circumcision, it is not very rational.
Since 2002, surgeons at the government hospital have stopped offering routine circumcision and have campaigned against it.
Anti-circumcision advocates believe that young boys should not be forced into circumcision because of cultural tradition and peer pressure. They believe it is important for parents to understand both the benefits and risks of routine circumcision before allowing their children to be circumcised.
According to surgeons, recent studies show that the medical benefits of routine circumcision is not compelling enough.
Said Dr Guerra:
The incidence of penile cancer worldwide is less than 2 percent and to do the procedure for such a low incidence would be an overkill.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 10th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
I am surprised that nobody has done a study to look at a possible correlation between circumcision and teen pregnancy.
The facts are there:
America has disproportionately high rates of both.
Circumcision makes masturbation more difficult.
Masturbation is the best form of contraceptive in existence.
Someone should test it if only to debunk it.
May 10th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
@Harry – that line of thinking is certainly worth a punt, but I have a feeling a study would find little to no correlation. The UK has very high teen pregnancy rates compared to the rest of Europe, yet basically no one outside small religious communities circumcise here unless it is for a serious medical problem.
May 10th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
I don´t know who publishes the Guinness Book of World Records but they should be ashamed of themselves if they include this horror in there.
May 10th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
I doubt that they will include it. They no longer include ‘trencherman’ feats or anything willfully dangerous, AFAIK.
May 10th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
http://community.guinnessworld...../7691.html
Statement From Guinness World Records
It has been bought to our attention that a circumcision event in the Philippines last Saturday has supposedly been approved by Guinness World Records.
Guinness World Records would like to clarify that it does not, under any circumstances, monitor, endorse or recognise this kind of ‘record attempt’. The organisers of the event have no approval from Guinness World Records to use its trademarks in connection with this event and any claim to officially recognise this event will be rejected.
For further information please contact our press office at press@guinnessworldrecords.com.
London
9 May 2011
At least Guinness aren’t having anything to do with this.
This is barbarity, it is mutilation of a childs genitals without that childs informed consent.
May 10th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Thank you for clearing up that misunderstanding. The Roman Catholic Priest is just checking to see who has been circumcised and who hasn’t. I knew there would be a simple explanation after all.
May 10th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
While I find this story horrible and disturbing, I have to confess I don’t understand its relevance to this forum.
As the thread commentary itself points out, “There is apparently no religious foundation for this irrational obsession with circumcision in the overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines.”
Or am I missing the point?
May 10th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
The Freethinker has historically dealt with general irrational behaviour as well as the religious kind. I recall a story regarding a witch doctor who sold herbs that, when you rubbed them on your body, made you bullet proof. Some guy then smeared himself with the herbs and got someone to shoot him and died as a result. The villagers then gave the witch doctor a kicking.
Also, although not in this case, circumcision is normally a religious practice.
May 10th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Further to Stonyground’s point, if circumcision hadn’t been kept up as a religious practice, I doubt even the word would be that well known. It would be a rare surgical procedure, known only to doctors and trivia-quiz buffs. So it’s still a secondary effect of religion.
May 11th, 2011 at 12:17 am
Oh, the stupidity.
May 11th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Someone has to supply the special stuff to Hilary Briss’ Butchers shop in Royston Vasey….
May 12th, 2011 at 5:54 am
Roy Castle must be squirming in his grave!
May 12th, 2011 at 6:04 am
MUTULATION MADNESS??????
GIVE ME A BREAK! “m
How about some LOGIC and the un-common thing called COMMON SENSE?
1. HOW do you KNOW masturbation with a circumcised dick is LESS pleasurable?
2. Were YOU masturbating9 BEFORE you were circumcised?
3. HOW do you KNOW others have the same? Or less? or More Pleasure as Much? as YOU do?
4. After over 76 years of life, which includes as from a highly active heterosexual male from age 17 to about 67, who bedded more than ninety women (not including 4 prostitutes) I know my circumcised dick has given me a LOT of pleasure.
5. Are you so totally clueless as NOT Know it is MUCH EASIER to keep a circumcised dick CLEAN than it is to keep an UN-circumcised dick is?.
6. While I may have suffered some pain due to being circumcised, I DO NOT NOW, & NEVER have Remembered ANY pain what-so-ever connected with it!!
7. After going out for football for 4 years in H.S. and 2 years in Jr College, being the student manager of the Basketball and track teams, being a Life Guard for four years who was required to check the boys large changing / shower room, plus a lot of time in the military, I have UN-intentionally seen a LOT of dicks! And I NEVER saw even ONE UN-Circumcised dick which did not look WORSE than ANY circumcised dick.
8. I do NOT consider circumcision to be any type of mutilation and I submit it is STUPID for anyone to say it is! The FACTS ARE, TRUTH IS, circumcision is NO more of a “mutulation” than is getting a “nose” job!
SO YEEEPIE FOR CIRCUMCISED DICKS!
Neil C. Reinhardt
101st Airborne Vet and a member of all of the following Atheist groups. PLEASE join one, of more of them and help assure Atheists are treated as fairly as anyone group.
http://www.Atheists.org/
http://www.AtheistsUnited.org/
http://www.FFRF.org/
http://MAAF.info/
May 12th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
The belief that there is no religious basis for the procedure in the Philippines is incorrect.Although the majority of Filipinos are in fact Catholic it is a synchrestic form.It is akin to saying most Hatians are Catholic,or most Hispanics are Catholic.Although withi the last 2 generations the procedure has shifted to a clinical setting the family still perceives it to be a genuine right of passage.
As for the blurb from a physician in Manila,equating the practice with an anti-cancer prophylactic,he must be extremely ignorant or else extremely biased to imagine that Filipinos are even aware of the correlation between a lack of circumcision and penile cancer.Curiously,a much more pertinent health concern is the spread of venereal disease and HIV.Circumcision absolutely offers a health benefit and so the good doctor’s comments sound even more pathetic.