Holy Week in the Philippines held in towns throughout the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and in the Ilocandia, as well as in Makati in Metro Manila. Except in the Bulakenyo towns of Baliuag and Pulilan, the Passion tableaux are excluded from the Good Friday afternoon procession. Maundy Thursday (Huwebes Santo) is the first statutory public holiday of the week, and marks the beginning of the Paschal Triduum. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Procession of the Passion of Christ was held on Maundy Thursday. This was later transferred to Holy Wednesday for Latin Rite Catholics, with the Philippine Independent Church (which separated
Holy Thursday (Songs of Experience) "reduced to misery". The "Holy Thursday" referred to in the poem is Ascension Thursday, which in the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion, can be used a synonym for the same feast; Thomas Pruen uses the term to refer to Ascension Day in his "Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England", published in 1820; however use of the term "Holy Thursday" to mean Ascension Day is rare, and the term is more generally applied by most Christian denominations to Maundy Thursday in Holy Week. On Ascension Day a service was held in St. Paul's