4 million

I have been invited several times to join the Black Nazarene procession. Once, a friend even had a shirt made for me, with my name embroidered under a likeness of the Nazarene.

Each time, however, something comes up to consume my day. I am torn between intense curiosity about this mass religious frenzy and plain dread of the sheer physical effort this ritual demands.

Each year, hundreds of thousand of people crowd the procession, pushing to get near the icon, trying to touch it, grabbing at the rope that is supposed to pull it forward.

Devotees say that grabbing the rope when it is straightened will cure all of one’s troubles. Grabbing it when it is curled will bring problems in the new year. But at every turn, everyone seems to be grabbing at the rope in whatever way it is shaped.

The very faithful, those who have taken the vow to join the procession every year, say that the Nazarene protects them from harm and keeps disease away. The very devout I know very often are people who have done bad things in the past and join the procession as a method of atonement.

I am not so sure about there being some divine commandment to join the procession regularly. What jealous god would want his most ardent believers to endure so much as a requirement for accreditation?

Each year, the procession takes casualties: usually devotees who suffer strokes in the heat and the sheer demand on endurance. Hundreds are normally injured: mainly from being crushed by frenzied crowds.

Veterans of this procession say 12 hours to complete the route — that on a normal day could be walked in under an hour — is good time. Last Saturday, the procession took all of 14 hours, from early in the morning to very late at night.

The reason for the longer trudge, it appears, is the fact that even more people joined in the ritual this year. In the previous years, two million devotees is a usual number. Last Saturday, the police now tell us, four million people actually turned up.

What lures such a number to this punishing ritual?

According to the articles of faith of the devotees, the icon performs miracles only on its feast day. I find that rather odd. But that is what the devotees believe in. That is what drives this very large throng to shove and push for hours. It is the item of belief that causes the crush.

Any other day, the faithful can come to the Quiapo church and interact with the icon. But if one wants to avail of its healing power and its ability to protect devotees, then the icon must be touched on its feast day. This explains the rather bizarre sight of people throwing their towels at the guardians of the image who, in turn, wipe it on the icon before throwing the towels back to their rightful owners. Throughout the whole procession, thousands of towels are flying between the throng and the icon.

The procession, by tradition, is supposed to retrace the route taken by the icon when it was transferred about two centuries ago when it was moved from within the Walled City to the church at Quiapo. It has grown, with the mutation of folk religiosity, into something very much more than that.

I doubt if there is any religious event anywhere, apart from the Hadj, which gathers 4 million people, shoving and pushing through a grueling 14-hour procession. This should be a major tourist draw where it not so bizarre.

The fact is, this is not a major tourist draw. This is an event that operates entirely within a specific Filipino discourse that foreigners will not readily understand. This is why this event does not figure as news abroad.

There is no formal doctrine that organizes the folk beliefs animating this unique event. Instead, there is an informal understanding passed around in the oral tradition. It is an informal understanding that is inherited across generations, passed around across communities.

There is so much in this informal understanding that should cause some concern among the protectors of Catholic doctrine. The Church hierarchy, however, never really bothers to argue with the informal understanding that draws so much people in so crowded streets.

The procession itself is iconic.

It speaks so much of the language of the weak, the discourse of the powerless. This procession, after all, is a largely lower class phenomenon. It is not the product of the cultural elite enunciating the formulas of formal doctrine.

The powerless participate in this ritual because it brings them closer to an image of great power. The vulnerable is accorded protection as a reward for taking vows. The sick is healed by the omnipotence of the heavens.

The Catholic Church has not formally accepted the belief that the image of the Black Nazarene is miraculous. But it has not discouraged the ritual woo. It has tolerated what, in the surface, appears to be bootleg theology because it cannot do otherwise.

Millions of individuals, performing a strenuous ritual, define their own theology. Not even a threat of excommunication will separate the devotees from a bizarre ritual. The powerless cannot be dissuaded by the powerful. This is a triumph in itself for the many who may be individually vulnerable but, in great number, unstoppable.

The greater number of participants in this year seems to be an indication of the depths of despair afflicting the vulnerable underclasses. There is no other reason explaining the larger turnout except that. We are a people that, in dark hours, grasps desperately for miracles.