The Fluvial Festival of Bicol

By Renato Perdon
Sydney, Australia
September 6, 2015



Many colourful traditions in the Philippines were inherited from Spain. One of them is the fiesta, usually a celebration of a religious event or to honour a patron saint in the Church’s calendar.

In Naga City, in the southern part of Luzon island, a well known and considered the biggest religious festival in the whole Bikol peninsula, is held in September to honour the Virgin of Peñafrancia.

One story indicated that a student at the Colegio de Sto. Tomas, later the University of Sto. Tomas, suffered a serious illness. He was informed of the miraculous Virgin of Peñafrancia. Reading through all literature about the miraculous image, he became a devout follower of the cult.

Because of his new found belief, he recovered from his illness. As a sign of gratitude, he initiated the construction of two churches to honour the Virgin of Peñafrancia, one in Nueva Caceres, later Naga City, in 1710, and the other in the district of Paco, Manila, in 1712.

Another version is that of a Spanish official who originated from the town of Peñafrancia in Spain where the famous Madonna of Peñafrancia is located.

Like in many religious rituals in the Philippines, the cult of Peñafrancia is not pure Spanish in character. The ancient beliefs of the Filipinos that spirits lived in the river, in the mountains and in the trees became integrated in the church religious rites.

During the pre-Spanish times when people got drowned in rivers, or attacked by crocodiles, or when rivers run out of fish, it was a sign to pay homage to the spirits of the river.

The ancient belief found its ways into the Peñafrancia ritual, a homage to a river for the fiesta of Peñfrancia is basically a rivertine procession.

According to Bikol legend, the first miracle that was attributed to the Virgin was the resurrection of the dog that gave it life to paint her image.

The story goes that the image of the Virgin Mary, the central focus of the fiesta, is a small and crudely carved wooden image. It has a ‘pagan-idol finish stained with blood instead of painted to capture the black image of the Virgin and Child in Salamanca.’ Because of this the dog was resurrected by the Virgin.

Today, the image is richly dressed in gold embroidered silk and has a jewelled crown of gold. It has retained its most distinctive feature, an old dark brown face like the colour tone that is Malayan in appearance, like that of a Filipino’s.

As in other religious rites in the Philippines, the main component of the fiesta of Peñfrancia is a nine-day prayer. The novena is usually timed to make the ninth day falls on the third Saturday of September when the actual feast starts with the transfer of the image from its shrine in the Peñfrancia Church to the Naga Cathedral.


The image is then paraded through the streets culminating in the fluvial processions. Even storm and other natural calamities cannot stop devotees from participating in the fluvial parade when the image is escorted from the Naga Cathedral to a huge pagoda-barge waiting at the southern part of the Bikol river in the city.

The gaily decorated barge is then towed by twenty five to forty dug-out wooden boats. Each boat is rowed by thirty male devotees and prominent townsmen. Like in the Quiapo religious procession in Manila, no women are allowed to participate in this task nor allowed to board the barge for fear that if a woman is on board, the barge with sink.

This belief has been re-enforced when several accidents happened during fluvial procession in the past. Hundred of devotees were drowned when a barge sank and went with it the image and the people on board.

In another disaster, the bridge where the procession would pass under collapsed and many died. All these accidents were blamed on the women who were found on board the barge carrying the Virgin and the Child.

Women’s place in the religious rites was confined along the riverbanks where they recite the prayers and sing festive hymns while fireworks light the skies.

The procession returns to the Church of Peñafrancia where the religious rites end followed by feasting, drinking and dancing that start early in the evening and last the following morning.

Again, this is a feature of the pre-Spanish ritual of the natives. After the morning mass, a community singing and dancing in front of the Church is performed to show the devotees’ gratitude for the blessings before the rice planting starts.