Pit senyor
 22 Jan. 2008

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IT was another Sinulog weekend, but this year, on a very personal level, it was quite more than just a Sinulog weekend.

Cebu was bursting with visitors and devotees of Sto. Niño de Cebu, and the hotels were booked to the rafters.

The lobby at the Waterfront Hotel in Lahug, which is my usual billet, was a sea of faces and a torrent of voices, in different shapes and languages. Noticeably, foreign guests were there in numbers; visitors from neighboring provinces had also increased.

Sinulog is a combination of religious festivities and the street parade. The former is highlighted by the fluvial parade that brings the holy image from Mandaue to the Basilica Saturday morning, and the procession that takes the Sto. Niño around Cebu’s major streets, culminating in the Pontifical celebration at dusk of the same day.

The street procession is an important part of the Cebuano’s veneration of Sto. Niño. You see, the Basilica itself, including its huge churchyard cannot accommodate the devotees who come from all over. Mid day of Saturday, as we arrived at the Basilica to join the procession, the lines, five or ten abreast, had already snaked around the main road and side streets, all the way to the City Hall. This was just the front end of the devotees who would follow the Sto. Niño in the procession.

Along the route of the procession, people patiently waited on both sides, often as many as 20 — or more deep on either side, for their "face time" with the Sto. Niño as the procession passes by.

Every face in the crowd mirrors devotion and hope, as the Sto. Niño approaches, and the traditional waving to the Child Jesus rises to an enthused flurry as He passes.

Counting those who joined the procession and the ones who lined the entire route, it could have been more than 2 million people, in all.

The procession lasted more than it should have, given the distance covered. Every so often people would ask that the procession stop, so they could pay their proper respects and show their devotion to the Sto. Niño.

Just a few hundred meters out of the Basilica, the organizers had to plead with the devotees to give the procession passage, as it got stalled by overeager devotees who would not budge from the Sto. Niño’s path.

At many points, confetti in the brightest colors would rain on the image, with the enthusiastic waving from the devotees rising in energy as the procession progressed.

An intermittent drizzle did not dampen the spirits at all. People waited patiently for the Sto. Niño to pass by, undaunted by the slight shower which, quite fortunately, did not became a downpour. As many said later, it was a shower of blessings.

Among those in the procession were Congressman Eddie Gullas and his brother, Dodong, and Congressman Raul del Mar.

As the procession ended at the Basilica, devotees greeted the Sto. Niño with the spirited waving of white hankies and the solemn singing of the devotional hymn.

There was no missing or mistaking the outpouring of love for our Sto. Niño, who was brought to the city by our first recorded visiting Christians.

The religious observance did not end there. At the Sunday 6 a.m. Pontifical Celebration by His Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, the devotees were still so many that the streets around the Basilica were clogged with people, who kept track of the mass through the public address system.

As people sang out their praise and devotion to the Sto. Niño, balloons were let go, with their petitions — favors, thanksgiving, hopes, dreams – scribbled on paper that hung at strings trailing the balloons. It was a magnificent sight, especially the faces of those whose petitions were soaring to the skies.

In my case, the special favor I sought from Sto. Niño, I found the day before at the procession.

Last year at the Sinulog, I could only do part of the procession having come from a major medical procedure barely three months earlier.

This year, I prayed for a full procession. And I got it even while some friends who were supposed to be built of stronger stuff dropped out at some point. Lasting the distance at the procession, cannot but reinforce my faith in our Sto. Niño.

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