The festivities in Cagayan will be two-fold. The days from June 4 to 23 will mark the quadricentennial celebration of Our Lady of Piat, while June 24 to 29 will be the 421st Aggao Nac Cagayan festival.
For the Aggao Nac Cagayan, activities lined up include the lighting of municipal torches by the 29 mayors, exhibits on Cagayan culture, arts and tourism (featuring visual arts done by Cagayano artists, photo exhibit on the old Cagayan from 1960 down and a special exhibit on the centuries-old churches of Cagayan), an agro-trade fair at the La Cagayana village, invitational sports tournament and a grand parade of floats, beauties and street dancers, among others.
The quadricentennial festivities will focus on the Marian devotion as there will be fluvial procession, grand rosary rally and grand procession of Marian images in Tuguegarao City, and the opening of the Sambali festival.
These festivities will be highlighted by the canonical coronation of the image of Our Lady of Piat by the Papal Legate at the shrine that has been declared Basilica Minore by Rome. Incidentally, it is now the center of the spiritual life of the people of Cagayan Valley and is visited by many pilgrims from all over the country.
To make the occasion memorable, the Pilgrim’s Inn & Retreat Center and the Piat Heritage Museum will also be blessed, capped by the launching of the book Yena Tam Ngamin (A Mother to Us All): The Miraculous Brown Madonna of Cagayan River Valley authored by Roberto Cannu Caballero.
Published by Piat Legacy Foundation for the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao, the handsome 256-page volume fleshes out the spiritual heritage of Cagayan Province with remarkable photography and extensive narratives put to print for the first time.
In his introduction to the book, Tuguegarao Archbishop Diosdado A. Talamayan documents that "Four hundred years ago, in 1604, the Dominican friars brought the image of Our Lady of the Rosary (for that is in fact her ‘official’ title) from Macau. She was part… of the missionary endeavour in Northern Cagayan. But when the Itawes would not be pacified, and the natives remained hostile to the faith, her image was brought in 1624 to the Itawes region, and very soon thereafter, her loving heart conquered the stubbornness and unbelief of the mengals of the Itawes…. From that time on, they would not allow her to be parted from them."
To this day, on the novena days preceding her fiesta, "when her image is brought out in procession, one cannot fail to be moved by the adulation with which she is revered and magnified."
To make the book doubly inspiring, the author, Bobby Caballero, commissioned advertising colleague, ace art director Rino Hernandez, to illustrate significant historical milestones for the book. An architect by education, Hernandez gravitated towards illustration, first for comic serials. The awesome craft of Hernandez is amply reflected in the artist’s self-taught mastery of anatomy, his delicate color sense and his tenacity for detail.
For the book, Hernandez did seven watercolor paintings: "Bless Diwa’s Blessing," the "Pre-Colonial Itawes," the "Madonna’s Arrival in Lal-lo," "Queen of the Valley," "The Madonna’s First Miracle," "Arrival" and "Aniteras."
In "Blessing," Hernandez portrays the attitude of gratitude from Bless Diwa, who rushed back to the Piat Basilica, straight from a nine-hour drive from Manila, after her nine-month old son was declared cured of leukaemia. Holding her baby up to the image, the artist animates the expressions of the Madonna and the child Jesus, emphasizing the joy, rather than just painting a statue-like representation.
"Pre-colonial Itawes" depicts the hunting of Pleistocene Age elephants over 750,000 years ago. Hernandez’s painting is an allusion to the National Museum’s findings that the first indirect signs of human life were found in the excavations in the Liwan area in Cagayan Valley.
Hernandez departs from historical paintings by Spanish artists representing the natives of Cagayan Valley in "The Madonna’s Arrival in Lal-lo." Previously, Spanish artists represent the natives as docile, wild indians or indios. He instead portrays a proud "race of people displaying a keenness of mind." The Dominican fathers assisted by the Chinese in the painting, symbolize the arrival from Macau. The proud native chief is Siriban, who became the first to be baptized.
Hernandez romanticizes the Virgin and her realm in "Queen of the Valley." In this painting, the valley is rich with flora and fauna and natural beauty. It also immortalizes the crowning of the Madonna by Vatican representatives "in recognition of her important role in the strengthening of the faith of the Cagayan Valley people" in 1954.
"The Madonna’s First Miracle" is about the drought of the Itawes region in 1623. Stories have it that the region suffered over three years of drought. A priest by the name of Fr. Sta. Ana, who was careful not to raise unusual expectations from the veneration of the image, told the people to pray the rosary. The people obliged, and on the ninth day, the rains came and continued for the next three months, thus sparing the crops and the people from starvation. Since then, this has been attributed as the Virgin’s first miracle.
"Arrival" recounts the Madonna’s exodus to the Itawes region from China. The Madonna, nicknamed muy morena (dark brown), was not popular among the Spanish residents of Lal-lo (Nueva Segovia). It was then shipped to the Itawes region to help quell the resistance of the people to conversion.
In "Aniteras," the artist employs heavy brush strokes to depict the pre-colonial worship of Ybanags in clearings deep inside the heavily forested valley. The water color painting also emphasizes that women rather than men perform the rites.
The book will be launched at the Piat Heritage Museum on June 22, following the blessing of the new building. Archbishop Talamayan and Monsignor Gerardo Perez, equally impressed by the artistry of Hernandez, commissioned him to do the mural that graces the new edifice. It will be inaugurated by Cardinal Marchisano, the head of Vatican’s Cultural Heritage division.