Devotees pray for good health, peace in Nazarene procession

MANILA, Philippines — Hundreds of thousands of Catholic pilgrims swarmed the streets of Manila in search of a miracle yesterday, straining to reach a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in an annual display of religious fervor.

Some said they prayed for good health for their families, an end to tensions in the South China Sea and for incoming US president Donald Trump to be kinder to Filipino immigrants.

The procession marks the feast of Jesus Nazareno and is a major annual Catholic event in Asia. The image was previously called the Black Nazarene, but Catholic Church officials appealed for a change, saying the former name was not founded in history and evoked a racial slur.

Following the six-kilometer route, the procession to the Quiapo Church, which started before dawn after an open-air mass, was expected to swell to more than two million participants from across the heavily Catholic country, Church officials said.

Last year, at least two million devotees joined the 15-hour procession, with some estimates of the crowd as high as over six million.

Fr. Robert Arellano, spokesman for Nazareno 2025, said the procession might take longer this year as it encountered delays along the way. He urged devotees to avoid climbing onto the carriage, emphasizing that the action hinders the procession’s progress.

Barefoot men and women in maroon shirts – the color of the robe that covers the black, wooden Jesus the Nazarene statue – scrambled to grab the rope used to draw the life-sized religious icon, believing it would bring good health.

“I prayed that my mother be healed from her heart attack,” Dong Lapira, 54, told AFP of a previous procession where he had been bruised and jostled in his attempt to join those pulling the rope.

He vowed to try again yesterday – this time to see his wife healed of gallstones.

“The Nazarene is very sacred. It has granted many prayers,” Lapira said.

Some faithful frantically threw white towels to worshippers tasked with guarding the float, hoping God’s blessings might rub off on the cloths used to clean the statue’s glass case.

One of the volunteer guards, Alvin Olicia, 38, said he was unaffected by the “extreme heat or rain” he had