Next year’s Fiesta Señor

Changes approved for

CEBU CITY – The Augustinian priests of Basilica Minore del Santo Niño have made changes in its religious activities for next year’s Fiesta Señor.

One such change is the extension of the annual traslacion, or the ritual transfer of pilgrim images, to LapuLapu City in Mactan Island".

On January 20, 2018, the images of Sto. Niño and Our Lady of Guadalupe will be brought to the Virgen dela Regla National Shrine in Lapu-Lapu in reply to numerous requests from the people in the island.

“We realized that there were requests coming from the devotees. These requests have been there long before we came here at the Basilica… (We decided to implement these) to cater the pastoral need of reaching out to more devotees,” said Fr. Aladdin Luzon, OSA, director of the Safety, Security, and Peace and Order Committee of the Fiesta Señor in a press conference recently.

Fr. Pacifico Nohara Jr. the Basilica’s rector, said the growing devotion of the faithful to the Sto. Niño prompted the changes.

Before the images are transferred through a motorcade to the shrine, a sendoff mass will be celebrated at 2 a.m. at the St. Joseph National Shrine in Mandaue City.

As in previous years, the two images will be brought from the Basilica in downtown Cebu City to the National Shrine of St. Joseph in Mandaue before it proceeds to the Ouano Wharf for the fluvial parade in the Mactan Channel.

But next year, the galleon that will ferry the images will leave at around 5:30 a.m. from the Muelle Osmeña port in Lapu-Lapu instead of from Ouano Wharf for the start of the fluvial parade.

In another modification, the Basilica community will give other boat owners a chance to have their vessels bear the images back to Cebu City during the fluvial procession on January 21, the climax of the Sinulog festival.

For about three decades, the yacht owned by the family of the late Ernesto Ouano was the one that transported the images.

For next year, the Augustinian fathers, through a raffle, have picked the Philippine Navy’s BRP Bagobo AT-293 as the official galleon that will carry the images.

The ship can carry 150 passengers. Luzon said among those allowed to board the vessel are Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, priests, the present and former Hermano and Hermana Mayores, and men dressed as Spanish soldiers who will take part in the reenactment of the first Catholic Mass, baptism, and wedding that follows after the fluvial procession.

The change was opposed by the Ouanos, who wanted to continue the family tradition.