The Sto Niño chapel at the corner of Archbishop Reyes Ave. and Salinas Drive in barangay Apas where the St. John Paul II whispered a prayer. (CDN Photo/Junjie Mendoza)
Under a flyover in one of the busiest intersections in Cebu City stands a jerry-built Sto. Niño chapel that nearby residents have been trying to save.
A 62-year-old widow, Prosie Azurin vividly remembers the moment she saw then Pope John Paul II on a truck that served as a papal float while his motorcade stopped for traffic while heading for the old Lahug airport, which has since become Cebu’s I.T. Park. He then knelt down inside their rickety chapel and prayed.
“He came from (Juan Luna Avenue) the airport and was on his way to the old Lahug airport where thousands of people were waiting for him. But his vehicle stopped right in front of our chapel and he knelt on one knee, paused as if he was saying a prayer to the Sto. Niño while inside his vehicle.
We believe it was the first Sto. Niño image he saw when he arrived,” Azurin said.
The chapel is tucked within the shanty structures along the busy intersection of Salinas Drive and Gov. Cuenco Avenue.
It is now dwarfed by the flyover and tall buildings.
Small
Azurin recalled distributing bread to cadets who were deployed as a human barricades along the motorcade’s route when Pope John Paul II visited Cebu in February 1981. She said there was a commotion as the Pope’s float stopped in front of the house of businessman Julian Vercede at the corner of San Jose Dela Montaña and Gov. M. Cuenco Avenue. Azurin said the truck moved closer to the chapel and stopped, so she went to the area. Gov. Cuenco Avenue then was too narrow, she said.
“Our chapel was very small then. It didn’t have a door and its walls were made of plywood. The image of the Sto. Nino was right there,” Azurin said pointing to the old altar.
The visit was documented in a photograph owned by Belen Arela, whose husband was chapel president.
Presence
The wobbly chapel was built in the early 1940s by the Vercede family.
The black wooden image of the Sto.Niño that the pope saw is owned by three unmarried sisters who live in a hinterland barangay in Consolacion town. It was brought to the chapel during fiestas in January and returned to the owners afterwards.
Azurin said the pope’s stopover before the chapel may have saved the chapel from demolition in 1984.
She said the settlers in barangay Lahug were then asked to move out.
Azurin, who is now the chapel president, is amazed by the community’s faith despite living in a neighborhood populated by nightly distractions.
Every time they hold novena masses, Azurin said they ask the officials to close that small road under the flyover so they could accommodate the people attending Mass.
Neighborhood beautician Carmen Villamor recalls the time she saw Pope John Paul II from a distance, “It’s the most beautiful kind of happiness I have experienced,” she said.