Manila - Madam Vering glanced around the plaza, looking for more customers as she flipped and read the tarot cards in front of her under the searing noon sun. "Be careful, you have stepped on a bad spirit and it's blocking your good luck," she told her client as they sat on plastic stools. "If you want, I can perform a ritual to remove the block of that bad spirit.
"It will be very simple, and after that, nothing will stand in the way of your good luck," the 63-year-old fortune teller added.
When the man declined the ritual, Vering continued to flip the cards and absentmindedly told a rather generic fortune: he would have an opportunity to travel and work abroad this year, earn more money and help his family.
Vering also warned the man against traveling at night, a possible burglary and health problems.
The session was over in less than 10 minutes, and the man paid Vering 100 pesos (2.43 dollars) and walked away.
Wearing huge sunglasses and a reddish brim hat, Vering is one of dozens of fortune tellers who offer their services in makeshift tents in downtown Manila.
They sit in rows just a few metres away from Quiapo Church, one of the oldest Catholic churches in the country, where thousands flock everyday to pray to the Black Nazarene, a 400-year-old, life-size image of a suffering Jesus Christ.
Dozens of people go to fortune tellers like Vering daily, often full of scepticism and caution at the beginning. But some become repeat customers after predictions come true or advice leads to positive results.
While the Catholic Church frowns on fortune-telling, superstitions and divination, many patrons of the Quiapo fortune tellers are devotees who find themselves in difficult situations and need guidance.
Even during Lent, a major religious holiday for Catholics in the Philippines, fortune tellers are expecting to be swamped by customers visiting Quiapo Church for Holy Week Masses and vigils.
Felipe De Leon Junior, a humanities professor at the University of the Philippines, said that while fortune-telling tends to conflict with Catholicism, the predominant religion in the country, it is part of the Filipino psychology.
"Filipinos are drawn to fortune-telling because they have a penchant for luck," he said. "We always believe that all will end up well and we do everything we can to make things well, even go to fortune tellers, hoping they can tell us what to do.
"Filipinos like to take chances, we are risk takers," he added, noting that many Quiapo fortune tellers are probably not true seers.
The Quiapo fortune tellers use tarot cards or ordinary play cards to tell fortunes; they read palms and perform "cleansing rituals" with "spiritual candles" that supposedly came from Italy. Some even claim they can heal.
"Please don't take my picture," pleaded Professor Jimmy, a 50-year-old fortune teller. "I heal, and my gift would be compromised if my picture is taken."
Jimmy, a bubbly, portly man, said he started telling fortunes 25 years ago after a spiritual healer helped him developed his power to heal and predict the future.
"I developed my power of healing first when I was about 19 years old," he said. "A few years later, I learned that I could read other people's fortunes by feeling their palm."
Jimmy claimed he was "quite accurate" in telling other people's fortunes.
"Not a few of them would return and thank me," he said as a young woman sat down on the stool in front of him for a session.
Vering said she first learned that she had "the gift" in 1968 when predictions she made for friends and family members allegedly came true. According to her, she sees visions when she reads tarot cards or a customer's palm.
She has 12 children, three of whom are now also fortune tellers who share her post across Quiapo Church.
Vering said she does not believe that fortune-telling clashes with Catholicism, adding that she herself is a practicing Catholic.
"God should always be the first," she said as she made the sign of the cross. "What we say here, our predictions and suggestions, these are just for people's guidance. What we say are not necessarily what will happen."
