Pulp gulping

MANILA — Consuming paper is simply not done, unless one has an eating disorder called xylophagia. But is eating paper bad?

It depends. If one is a patient of herbalist doctor Harold Cabrera of Gen. Mariano Alvarez, Cavite, eating his “holy paper” is good as it can allegedly heal any sickness and even a curse or spell cast by a witch.

Cabrera was recently featured in a TV show wherein he explained and demonstrated his healing process. The piece of “holy paper,” which is about three or four inches in diameter, is placed on the palm of a patient. If the paper’s edges slightly fold, the patient is said to be afflicted with a natural disease. If the folds are big, the patient is under the spell of a sorcerer and needs to undergo “tawas.”

He then recites a prayer while folding the paper into a smaller size, which he then puts in the mouth of the patient to be eaten. Once eaten, the affliction goes away.

Cabrera’s patients have claimed they were healed after eating his “holy paper.”

However, for students of Paknaan National High School in Mandaue City, Cebu, they became upset when their mathematics teacher forced them to eat paper as punishment for not doing their seatwork in September 2012.

The paper-eating also proved to be unpleasant for the teacher as one of the student’s parents filed a complaint against her before the Office of the Ombudsman.