CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 9 Jan) – Thousands of devotees flocked to the streets in the early hours of the morning on Thursday during the procession to transfer the life-sized Black Nazarene statue from St. Augustine Metropolitan Cathedral to its shrine in Nazareno parish church in Barangay Lapasan here, but the number of participants has notably gone down compared to its peak two years ago.
Lt. Colonel Evan Viñas, Cagayan de Oro City Police Office spokesperson, said around 13,000 devotees joined in this year’s Traslación. Nick Jabagat, Cagayan de Oro Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (DRRMO) chief, has the same estimate of the crowd as the police’s.
Procession participants peaked in 2023 when, fresh from the COVID-19 lockdowns, procession participants reached 100,000, gaining Cagayan de Oro prominence next only to that in Quiapo in Manila.
Last year, police estimated the crowd at 18,000.
Monsignor Perseus Cabunoc, parish priest of the Nazareno church, said similar processions in other areas in Mindanao – like Iligan City, Manolo Fortich town in Bukidnon, and as far away as Tagum City in Davao del Norte – must have caused the crowd in Cagayan de Oro to drop significantly.
“The devotees from these areas used to come here to join the Traslación. Why should they come here now that they have their own procession?” Cabunoc said.
He added that the young has also apparently lost interest in religious rites as they are more interested in and hooked to technology.
Cabunoc said that during the two-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nazareno parish church made replicas of the life-sized Black Nazarene or Nuestro Padre de Jesus Nazareno and sent then to different parishes in Mindanao.
Wenceslao Salcedo, of the Hijos del Nazareno de Cagayan de Oro, blamed the “excessive” tight police security around the carriage bearing the life-size replica of the Black Nazarene for the sharp drop of the Traslación crowd as devotees could no longer go near the statue.
“It is now a Traslación for the policemen,” he lamented.
The impact of dwindling numbers of devotees is being felt by vendors who sell miniature statues of the Black Nazarene, handkerchiefs, and other religious paraphernalia beside the Nazareno parish church.
Lt. Col. Nerfe Valmoria, chief of police operations, ordered the vendors to back off more than 50 meters from the church as part of the security preparations.
Dodong Napoco, 51, who sells handkerchiefs, said the measure affected his sale of handkerchiefs. “I used to sell 100 handkerchiefs during the Traslación. This morning I sold only 40 pieces,” Napoco said.
Marites Fernandez said the security measure forced her to close her small stand beside the Nazareno church.
DRRMO’s Jabagat said only one person was aided by the paramedics – a elderly woman who later refused an ambulance sent for her and instead boarded a news van from a local radio station.
The Feast of the Black Nazarene in Cagayan de Oro started in January 2009 when a Philippine Air Force C-130 plane carried the “callejeron,” a donation from Quiapo Church. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)
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