George Lawrence Pestaño-Aloba looks from the window of his house as he oversees preparations of the family’s life-size icons and carroza hours before the start of the 2014 Good Friday procession in Bantayan town.
(CDN PHOTO/PETER ROMANILLOS)
Bantayan Island, Cebu – When supertyphoon Yolanda struck last year, 25-year-old George Lawrence Pestaño Aloba said his personal safety was not his biggest concern.
Aloba was more worried about the condition of his family’s life-size religious statues, which have been in the safekeeping of the Pestaño family since the first time the icons were part of the town’s annual carroza procession in 1956.
On Good Friday, almost five months after the storm, Bantayan’s famed Holy Week procession of Biblical images continued its tradtional trek down the town’s streets.
Thousands of people flocked to Bantayan to attend the three-hour procession including devotees from nearby Negros Island and islets around Bantayan.
Fifteen carrozas depicted scenes from Christ’s passion and death. The last carriage held Christ’s body in a glass coffin (Santo Entierro) adorned with white flowers.
Yolanda’s gusts had caused the walls of the garage where the images were housed to collapse. But the icons sustained only minor cracks.
Aloba said he believes “divine intervention” was in play, the same reason the family says it was able to send the icons to the Holy Week procession for more than 50 years.
“We just entrusted everything to the Lord because He has never failed us time and time again,” said Aloba, who is in charge of clothing the icons ever year.
As part of the third generation of Pestaños, he continues the duty of taking care of the icons that started from their grandparents’ Cesar and Petra.
A day before the procession, one of their cousins arrived just in time to fix and repaint parts of the Jesus Christ icon which sustained minor cracks.
The family’s set of images depicts the “Deposition of Christ” with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea taking Jesus Christ down from the cross after the crucifixion.
Every year, the family spends more than P100,000 for the procession. About a third of that is spent on new garments for the icons.
The family also hosts a big feast at home after the procession. Aloba said “everyone is welcome to eat.”
Then all family members go home to attend the procession.
“It is really faith that’s sustaining us to do this every year. Family inheritance man ni, we cannot stop this,” said Aloba, a public school teacher.
The crucifixion of Jesus is depicted in one of 15 lighted carrozas in front of Bantayan’s parish church, which was partly damaged by by supertyphoon Yolanda.
(CDN PHOTO/PETER ROMANILLOS)
DAMAGED ICONS
The family of Malen Hubahib-Gardner also had to repair storm damage on their life-size icons.Both shoulders of the family’s image of Jesus Christ hung on cross together with the two thieves, Dismas and Gestas, got broken.They were stored in the Hubahibs’ 100-year-old ancestral house in the poblacion. The house itself was heavily damaged in the storm.
Gardner was giving final instructions to workers on the morning of Good Friday. The carroza was parked outside her house . Cracks on the icons were hardly visible after a paint job but Gardner said she is planning to rehabilitate the images after the procession.
RENEWED FAITH
During the Good Friday procession, Aloba and Gardner walked in front of their family carrozas followed by a sea of devotees.
Mirasol Buagan, who comes from Doong islet off Bantayan, travelled on a motorbanca with her whole family, including two children, to attend the activity.
“Pasalamat ni sa amoa sa Ginoo nga bisan naunsa mi sa Yolanda, buhi lang gihapon mi,” she said.
(I want to thank God for keeping my family alive no matter what damage we suffered in Yolanda).
Her house was flattened by the storm. She said a foreign relief group helped rebuild her home.
There were more churchgoers this year after the calamaity, said Msgr. Alfredo Romanillos, parish priest of the Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Bantayan town.
He said “Yolanda” led to a renewed faith for Bantayanons, and was a wakeup call for the faithful.
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