Rough Groove

Sinulog 06: Sto. Nino

Less than a week of covering the Black Nazarene festivities in Quiapo and I was back again in Cebu for the Sinulog, the Cebuano’s grand mardi gras in honor of the child king, the Sto. Nino (Holy Child). My plans before was to join the Ati-atihan in Kalibo and when that fizzled out prematurely, I consoled myself to just experience the Caracol of Makati or the Sto. Nino feast in Tondo. Fortunately, my boss had other plans and I was in Cebu.

Every third Sunday of January, Cebu is in a party mood. Locals and tourists from all over the country and the world including the balikbayans (there were two direct flights from Hawaii and LA to plane in visitors), devotees from all walks of life and from different strata of society converge in the Queen City of the South to give thanks, honor, pray to the Holy Child, as well as just enjoy the festivities that is uniquely Cebuano.

It should also be noted that in other parts of the country, there are parallel but simpler celebrations within the month of January (the Tondo feast mentioned earlier is also of note) but the Cebu event just dwarfs the rest in scale, pomp and pageantry. This is testament to the millions of devotees to this very popular religious icon.

Central to the celebrations is the centuries old Convent and Basilica of Sto. Nino of the Augustinians along Magallanes street where the Holy Image is kept. I have often been to this church as I had my elementary education adjacent to the basilica and during Fridays, which is the day of devotion, people flock to this church to pray, have the novenas as well as pay homage. A female devotee (left) carrying an image during the procession. Just like in the Quiapo festivities wherein you can see devotees carrying statuettes and icons of the Black Nazarene, its also the same here in Cebu wherein people are also carrying different sizes of the Sto. Nino.

Inside the Basilica, people can light candles to offer their their supplications and during this time of the year, it can really get crowded. As for this old woman (left), after lighting a couple of candles and offering prayers, she then extended her hand over, just enough to get the heat of the fire and then touched her nape and her chest. One can see these being performed by other people on different parts of their body as a sort of act to heal pain and suffering.

Outside the basilica’s gates (right), these devotees are also lighting candles bought at P1 (1/50 of dollar) from vendors. What differs from those inside the basilica is that before these candles are given, the vendors make a prayer dance, afterwhich the devotee then lights these ontop of the cans. By the way, the cans is also a receptacle for the candles whose wax are then melted and recycled. Sometimes, people will rely on others to pray for them thinking that prayers said by these vendors, usually old women, are more effective.

One of the popular prayer activities by devotees is coming up to an image (left) in one part of the church to touch, say prayers, bows one’s head, daub a kerchief or kiss the glass enclosing the image. With the advent of camera phones and digital cameras, it is now common to see devotees taking a photo. Especially during this time, the line can stretch out so long that last Saturday (right), it spilled outside the church and snaked along the backstreet.

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