MANILA (UCAN): As millions of Filipinos celebrated the feast of Santo Niño, or Child Jesus, Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, directed the attention of devotees to the plight of the thousands of people displaced by the eruption of Taal Volcano on January 12, 60 kilometres south of Manila (Sunday Examiner, January 19).
“In spite of the natural calamities in our country, let us depend on God and ever trusting in Him,” the bishop said.
Evacuations from around the ash-spewing volcano continued on January 17, with at least 57,000 people having reached evacuation centres since January 12.
Displaced villagers were crammed into some 257 evacuation sites and officials reported that they were struggling to supply basic needs, including breathing masks, toilets and bottled water.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said there had been nearly 600 volcanic earthquakes, some as strong as magnitude 4.
Taal is one of the smallest but most active volcanoes in the world. It has erupted more than 30 times in the past 500 years, most recently in 1977.
The devotion to the Santo Niño, an image of the boy Jesus usually dressed as a king, has been part of popular piety in the Philippine for centuries.
The oldest and most popular image of the Santo Niño can be found in Cebu, in the central Philippines where the grandest celebration dubbed the Sinulog is held every year.
Each January, millions of people flock to a basilica in Cebu where the Santo Niño image is housed while religious processions and colourful parades are held in the streets of the city.
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In recent years the events have reportedly drawn up to three million people, making Cebu’s Sinulog one of the largest annual events in the Catholic world.
The Sinulog, or dance prayer, the oldest festival in the country, comes from the Cebuano word “sulog” or water current descriptive of the dance movement depicting the flow of water to the beat of drums.
Devotees wave their hands in the air and shout “Viva Senor Santo Nino!” of “Hail to the Holy Child! and “Pit Senor!” short for “Sangpit sa Senyor (Hail the Lord).”
The 38-centimetre-tall image of the Santo Niño in Cebu was a gift from Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, to the queen of the island, Juana, when she was baptised a Catholic in 1521.
“Let us live our life on obedience, in submission to God’s will and under the guidance of our parents,” Bishop Santos said.
On Friday, January 17, an estimated 300,000 Marian devotees took part in a religious procession dubbed Walk with Mary in Cebu.
