Rift won’t stop Peñafrancia parade

NAGA CITY - As they have always done for the past 15 years, tens of thousands of students marched through Panganiban Avenue and over Lt. Delfin C. Rosales Bridge in Naga City on Friday in what was billed as Bicol’s longest military parade, in time for the Feast of the Our Lady of Peñafrancia.

And as in previous walks, they hurdled humps, laid this time by the Bicol Association of Catholic Schools (BACS) and several Church leaders who questioned the activity’s relevance to the celebration in honor of the region’s patroness.

“Marchers, wooden guns, western uniforms, accreditation of tailoring shops, competition, trophies—all these symbols and activities have nothing to do with the Marian devotion,” Fr. Wilmer Joseph Tria said.

According to Bicol historian Danilo Madrid Gerona, the military parade was started in 1940, mandated by the Commonwealth government and implemented by US Gen. Douglas McArthur.

“There was urgency at that time when the Commonwealth government urged the country to prepare for war. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the military intelligence said Japan was bracing for an attack against the Philippines and the students had to be prepared,” Gerona said.

Losing relevance?

Almost 70 years after, the parade seems to be losing its meaning—and numbers.

It “has no relevance to either the celebration or the enhancement of the devotion to [Mary] so it should not be scheduled within the novena to Our Lady of Peñafrancia,” Fr. Joel E. Tabora, president of Ateneo de Naga University and the BACS, said in June.
The Jesuit-run Ateneo de Naga and the Augustinian-run La Consolacion Colleges were among the several Catholic schools which did not join Friday’s parade.

The march still attracted 366 competing units from 76 schools, including Dominican-run Colegio del Santisimo Rosario in Libmanan, Camarines Sur, and six other BACS members.

In 2001, the event suffered a similar setback when the Commission on Higher Education issued a memorandum offering the National Service Training Program (NSTP) as an alternative to the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).

As more schools preferred the NSTP over the ROTC, the number of participants in the military parade dwindled.

Different views

This year, the parade almost did not push through because of differences of views on its relevance to the Marian devotion, especially at a time when the local Catholic Church was preparing for the celebration of the tercentenary of the devotion to the Our Lady of Peñafrancia in 2010.

Despite the flak it has received, the Archdiocese of Caceres and the city government agreed to retain the yearly activity after a series of meetings. They maintained that it still helped inculcate the values of camaraderie, discipline and sportsmanship among the youth in Bicol.

The student marchers always reached two city landmarks, named after two illustrious Bicolanos—Spanish-era scholar Jose Maria Panganiban and World War II hero Lt. Delfin C. Rosales.

The parade was only one among the traditional civic events during the Peñafrancia festivities that almost disappeared this year.

The Ms Bicolandia beauty pageant was nearly scrapped after Church and city officials decided to ban such contests on fiesta week. It pushed through, however, a week before the festivities started.

Viva Naga

In turn, the nine-day Peñafrancia Fiesta was limited to religious and cultural activities after the city government chose to launch its own festival, dubbed Viva Naga, Viva Bicolandia.

A Church-based group, however, was still “dismayed and disappointed.” Treating parades, mall tours, fashion shows, dance showdowns, regattas, cooking demos, bull rides, videoke challenges, and food expos to be of equal value with sacraments and religious practices was offensive, it said.

Florencio Tam Mongoso, marketing committee head of Viva Naga, said that while it had considered the issues raised by the Church, the city government could not ban “any activity that does not violate any existing city ordinance or national law.”

“We are in a free country,” Mongoso stressed.

Still, the criticisms against the military parade continued.

“Other than the lack of history and meaning, parading with wooden guns is a most pathetic thing (to do) during the parade,” said anthropologist Tito Valiente, who is also a columnist for the local weekly Vox Bikol.

New competitions

Vic Avila, chair of the city committee on the military parade, said he was not giving up the activity. Next year, new contests will be held to attract more participants, he said.

“Fancy drill competition was introduced this year. Next year, we will have competitions for marching bands, college majorettes and high school drum and bugle corps,” Avila said.

Although several Catholic schools had backed out, he said, participation in Friday’s parade did not drop.

“In fact, there were many schools wanting to participate. Had we not turned down some of them, especially those who did not meet some of the preliminary requirements in joining the contest, we could have had a very long parade which could last until the evening,” Avila said.

The parade took 12 hours and went on despite the afternoon downpour that soaked the students’ uniforms.

“Participants in the military parade and its organizers were volunteers who joined and worked for the sake of friendly competition. There were neither cash prizes for the winners nor incentives for organizers,” Avila said.

From the start, he said, cash prizes were not given because the organizers wanted to encourage participants to do their best as a way of honoring the Our Lady of Peñafrancia and not because of any other motivation.

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