The Peñafrancia Festival: For the love of 'Ina'

It was no secret that Robredo has been a devotee of the Our Lady of Peñafrancia since he was a young man. The festival Naga City’s Peñafrancia Festival is one of the country’s biggest displays of religious devotion, uniting Bicolanos of all ages and from all over the world in devotion to their beloved “Ina” — Our Lady of Peñafrancia, patroness of Bicol. This year marks the festival’s 302nd anniversary.  According to the Peñafrancia Basilica website, the devotion to the Lady of Peñafrancia originated from Salamanca, Spain in the 1400s, when hermit Simon Vela had a vision of the Virgin Mary and later discovered an image of her in the Peña de Francia mountains. In the 18th century, the Cobarrubias family of San Martin de Castañar in Spain came to the Philippines and settled in Cavite, bringing with them their son Miguel, who was a devotee of the Lady of Peñafrancia, and who would eventually be ordained in Naga. According to the website, whenever the sickly Miguel fell ill, he prayed to the Lady and recovered thereafter. In gratitude, he built a chapel in her name near the hills, so that the Cimarrones tribes who lived at the base of Mt. Isarog could easier hear mass. At the same time, Miguel also commissioned a sculptor to craft a wooden image of the Lady, patterned after the original in Spain. The image was painted with the blood of a dog that was said to have become the Lady’s first miracle when it swam back to life after its body was discarded in a river. The image was stolen in 1981, but returned — some say miraculously — the year later. Everybody welcome Santos told GMA News Online via email that the festival’s participants include a colorful mix of people, “young, old, mostly Bikolnon from all over the region, nation, world, but also other Catholic pilgrims who have a panata or vow, usiseros—anyone who wants to, participates.” “The most obvious participants, because they are in uniform, are the clergy, the students, and religious and civic associations, NGOs and POs,” she added. In the days that follow the Traslacion, novena masses are held daily in honor of the Lady. As per tradition, at the end of the weeklong novena the image will be returned to her shrine in a grand fluvial procession, which ends in a Pontifical mass. This year’s fluvial parade is scheduled for the afternoon of Sept. 15. “Foreigners, non-Bikols and non-Catholics might say there's some kind of fanaticism in the procession, but I see it as an awesome display of faith and fervor particularly in Ina,” Santos said. “I think this harks back to a more ancient God, God the Mother, since even the image is a small black Madonna rather than the white images brought by the Spanish friars,” she explained. The Black Madonna, according to Stephen Benko, author of “The Virgin Goddess” which studies the origins of the Black Virgin, "is the ancient earth-goddess converted to Christianity." Santos also noted, “she has also been called Our Lady of the Cimarrones, suggesting the image was used to get the hill tribes into the fold of the Catholic Church.” — BM/KG, GMA News