SOME four million devotees poured into Quiapo Church and nearby areas Tuesday as the image of the Black Nazarene wended its way toward the basilica on its yearly procession, the Philippine National Police said.
This year’s number of participants was more than double last year’s PNP crowd estimate at 1.4 million during the 22-hour-long procession.
Manila Police District Chief Supt. Joel Coronel said the 2018 Traslacion is expected to finish by Tuesday midnight.
The sea of heaving, towel-waving humanity swarmed the black statue of a cross-bearing Jesus Christ in one of the country’s largest religious festivals.
In a frenzied display of religious fervor, men, women and children climbed over heads and shoulders and flung themselves at the centuries-old Black Nazarene that they say performs miracles.
Drawn by devotees pulling on thick ropes attached to its carriage, the icon left a central Manila park with 490,000 people in tow waving white towels and chanting “Viva” (“Long live”), Manila police said.
The statue passed through the streets of old Manila as it was taken to its home in Quiapo Church, a journey that usually takes 20 hours or more and which police said would draw millions of participants.
“It is really tough climbing to get to the Nazarene. I get squished, and people step on my face. But I have a devotion,” Honey Pescante, a 24-year-old housewife from Bataan province, said.
City officials say about 500 people get injured in the procession each year as pilgrims risk life and limb to touch the icon with towels, believing its miraculous powers will be transferred to the cloth. In 2016, two devotees were killed.
The risky behavior has drawn frequent criticism, with some saying it resembles pagan worship.
But church officials and sociologists say devotees see the event as a challenge.
“Filipino Catholicism follows the belief that the presence of a higher being can only be made real through the body and via the material,” Maria Yohana Frias, an ethnology researcher at the National Museum said.
“Enduring a challenging procession where devotees walk barefoot is also seen as a test of faith for some.”
The Black Nazarene was brought to Manila by missionaries in 1606 and is believed to have survived disasters and calamities.
“Filipinos who come to Quiapo… get a sense of being near the Lord, of the Lord touching them and of the Lord accompanying them… through difficult challenges,” Quiapo Church parochial vicar Fr. Marvin Cruz said.
A devotee for 30 years, 61-year-old Julio Castillo watched from the sidelines of the procession Tuesday after both his feet were fractured in a motorcycle accident last month, leaving him in a wheelchair.
“I came here because this is my devotion. I hope my family will have good health and a prosperous life, that we will have no illness and I will heal,” he said.
Earlier, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle warned that greed and hunger for power would lead to abuse, adding that forgetting the importance of serving God would lead the country down a false path.
The Cardinal made the statement in his homily during the midnight Mass for the Black Nazarene Feast at the Quirino Grandstand, in Rizal Park, Manila.
“Unless wealth and power are used at the service of society, they risk becoming instruments of abuse.
“Life does not lie on power. We were born without power, and when we die, we are powerless as well. Let us live without being greedy for power and you will be a real person,” Tagle told thousands of Nazarene devotees who attended the Mass.
The church leader also urged the faithful to be more altruistic and to better look out for the poor and hungry instead of living “false lives” of selfishness.
“Be an instrument of life for others,” he said during Mass attended by thousands of devotees and some top government officials including Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and Philippine National Police chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa.
As early as Monday, devotees already gathered at the grandstand where a replica of the 410-year-old Black Nazarene image was brought for an overnight vigil.
More than 5,000 police and volunteer marshals were stationed within the six-kilometer stretch of the “traslacion” from the grandstand to the Quiapo Church, the minor basilica that has housed the Black Nazarene since 1787.
The traslacion commemorates the transfer of the venerated image from Intramuros to Quiapo Church.
Authorities said the situation in the area remained largely orderly, though the day was not without its share of people who had difficulty breathing or who complained of dizziness.
Police placed the number of injured at 258 people as of 4 p.m.
The Philippine Red Cross said it responded to 22 “major” health cases and 240 minor ones.
Manila Police District officers said there was also a steady stream of people trying to find their companions who had been separated from them in the clogged streets.
Among the millions, one devotee, Cesar Navarro, found a wallet belonging to Leo Mijares and returned it to him with the P5,700 in cash intact.
“We all need money, but the Nazarene teaches us not to take what is not ours,” Navarro said in Filipino.
Mijares said it was a blessing from the Black Nazarene to get his wallet back, especially since he is also celebrating his 58th birthday.
He thanked Navarro and the Black Nazarene. With AFP