CDO’s Black Nazarene draws 150,000 devotees

January 10, 2010

The Black Nazarene Feast here in Cagayan de Oro last Saturday drew in one of the largest number of devotees the city has ever seen. Some of the devotees are reportedly not just from Mindanao but also even from the Visayas islands.Police Precinct No. 1 station commander police senior inspector Limuel Gonda estimated that there were around 150,000 people who paraded around the city streets accompanying the Black Nazarene statue which was actually handed over straight from the original Nazareno Church located in Quiapo Church in Manila.
Around two to three dozens of police officers and trainees had to link their arms to barricade supporters from trying to climb over the Black Nazarene statue to touch it, wipe their handkerchiefs and even grab hold of its cloth.
Those devotees who want to have their handkerchiefs or pieces of clothes wiped over the Black Nazarene statue need only signal to the yellow-clad members of the Hijos of the Black Nazarene who stood close to the vehicle carrying the Black Nazarene.
The Black Nazarene who is also known as Jesus of Nazarene is believed to be one of the miraculous patron in the Catholic Church.
Even the new Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) police director senior superintendent Benedicto Brucal Lopez confessed that he himself is a Black Nazarene devotee.
He disclosed his deep gratitude that he is now assigned here in Cagayan de Oro where there is a Black Nazarene Feast just like in Quiapo where he never fails to attend the patron’s annual celebration.
Lopez said, even before he was informed that he would be detailed to Cagayan de Oro city, he had already made a decision to attend the Quiapo Black Nazarene Feast this year.
“This is indeed a blessing for me because I am a devotee of the Black Nazarene. I am very thankful as this means I would not skip this year’s Feast,” the top-brass police officer said.
Lopez also expressed his deep gratitude to the city residents and the police force that all showed their support in making sure that the Black Nazarene Feast was celebrated this year without any major untoward incident being reported.
PNP operations chief inspector Jeffrey Lawrence Mauricio who also served as among the top officers at the Quezon City Police Department compared the Black Nazarene celebration here in Cagayan de Oro city with that in Quiapo.
“People here in Cagayan de Oro are more organized,” he said.
Nevertheless, Mauricio predicts that the Black Nazarene Feast next year would draw a larger crowd than the 150,000 devotees this year.
More than 200 policemen while the Regional Training School (RTS) under training director Col. Benito Ramos deployed also some 200 police trainees to help augment the police force and ensure that the celebration was peaceful and the traffic was free-flowing.
The Black Nazarene was brought from the Nazareno Church in CM Recto Avenue to the St. Augustine Cathedral for the Holy Mass which was celebrated by Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro head Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, SJ and Nazareno Parish priest Msgr. Rey Monsanto.
The replica of the Black Nazarene arrived here from the Quiapo Church last year but two days later a rare disaster struck Cagayan de Oro city – a major flood that left hundreds of city residents homeless, several persons injured and around ten persons dead.
Such was a rare experience considering that the city is considered as one of the typhoon-free areas in Mindanao.
Msgr. Monsanto disclosed, during one of his homilies then, how he was deeply saddened by how some city residents pointed fingers at the Black Nazarene. He asked those who blamed the Black Nazarene to stop paying respects to the patron considering that such acts would be “hypocritical.”
Monsanto said the flashflood was actually a “wake up call” to the city residents to start protecting and preserving their environment as the flashflood was due to the denuded forests, irresponsible mining around the city’s rivers and on improper waste disposal.