CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 9 January) – Thousands of devotees braved the cold weather Tuesday dawn to join the “traslacion” or procession of the Black Nazarene, with the crowd conspicuously smaller compared to the past years as the city government did not declare today, January 9, a holiday, an official said.
Although fewer in number compared to the past years, the devotees chanted “Viva Nazareno” as a gesture of veneration to the life-size statue of the dark-skinned Jesus Christ carrying the cross as it was brought to the Jesus Nazareno parish church in Barangay Lapasan, its home.
Colonel Evan Viñas, spokesperson of the Cagayan de Oro Police Office, said that at least 18,000 devotees joined the procession from the St. Augustine Metropolitan Cathedral to the Nazareno parish church.
“The crowd is smaller this year compared to last year’s traslacion, which drew at least 110,000 people,” Viñas said.
He said one major reason for the smaller attendance this year is the non-declaration of a special non-working day on Tuesday by the local government unit (LGU) of Cagayan de Oro.
Viñas said had the Cagayan de Oro LGU declared Tuesday a special public holiday, it would have freed thousands of employees from work to allow them to join the traslacion.
Last week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared January 9 a special non-working day in Manila for its Black Nazarene celebration, but not in Cagayan de Oro.
Police earlier expected 150,000 devotees to attend the traslacion, and had set up an elaborate security plan fielding 1,000 policemen and soldiers to secure the procession. Law enforcers took into consideration the bombing of a Catholic Mass in Marawi City on December 3, which left four people dead and injured 72 others, in their security preparation.
The security plan even included a bomb drill last Sunday and this morning, all mobile communications were jammed all over Cagayan de Oro for at least four hours for the procession.
“I am not scared of these bomb threats. My devotion to the Black Nazarene will protect me,” 51-year-old Luz Torralba, who hails from Panglao in Bohol, said.
Torralba said she had been a devotee since 2009 when the traslacion started in Cagayan de Oro and always come back here, carrying her small Black Nazarene figurine, since then.
She said she will come back again next year to join the traslacion. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)
