Cebu Holy Child Festival is spectacular

January 15 coincides with this year's Cebu Holy Child Festival. The celebration also includes the annual Santo Niño de Cebu river parade. This year's Holy Child Festival parade fleet started on January 14.

Due to the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, most of the local festivals and celebrations have been suspended for more than two years, but these activities have now resumed. The return of the Parade of the Holy Baby has become a religious event that the local people are looking forward. At the beginning of the cruise, the statue of the Holy Baby Jesus was boarded on a Coast Guard (PCG) ship called BRP-Cabra, BRP-Cabra a marine police ship used for environmental enforcement.

Lieutenant Pagaliwagan (Stephen Pagcaliwagan), spokesman for the Visaya region of the Philippine Sea Police, said: A total of 181 ships took part in the Parade of the Holy Infant this year, including 16 yachts, 17 tugboats, 131 motorboats and 17 other ships with a gross tonnage of less than 300 tons.

The cruise fleet first passed the Mandawe-Merdan (Mandaue-Mactan) Bridge in Muelle-Osmeña Port and the South Cebu City Road complex, and then docked at Cebu City Port Pier 1.

Finally, the statue of the Holy Infant will return to the consecrated Minore Del Santo Niño (Basilica Minore Del Santo Niño), recreating the scene of Cebu welcoming the statue of the Holy Infant for the first time in 1521. (The Portuguese adventurer Magellan landed in the Philippines from Cebu in 1521. He gave the statue of the Holy Infant to the wife of the local chief as a memorial. It is said that the lady of the chief was very happy after receiving the statue of the Holy Infant and danced a Sinolug dance at the time. Thanks, and prayed for the tribesmen to reduce the disease and eliminate the disaster. Later, this icon was placed in the Cathedral of the Holy Infant, and the Cebu people regarded it as the patron saint of the city)

In the afternoon of the same day, believers in the city will also hold a solemn hiking tour. In history, more than 100 million believers participated in the Holy Infant Day parade. The Diocese of Cebu said that it was very happy to see the return of the Parade of the Holy Infant, and the joy of the clergy was beyond words when they saw the vast parade of the Holy Infant on the river.