VOICES FROM THE 69TH STREET
By Joseph Sylvester Evidente Pampliega

Today is going to be one hell of a day in Jaro. All the streets going to and from Jaro Plaza and the Jaro Cathedral will be closed. Despite that, people from everywhere, even from interior towns and other provinces here and even outside of Iloilo, will crowd the streets. To some, this is an annual experience of inconvenience when you have to pass Jaro to go somewhere else like work or school (consider as well the possible hot day that it usually is). For others, this would be a sight of chaos as people rush in and about their family or friend’s house, not to mention flocking around kiosks in the side-streets selling just about anything including the famous “Perdon” candle.

But what is Jaro fiesta all about? What brings all these people from everywhere, in all their possible inconveniences, to come to Jaro and spend the day there? I believe it’s not just the food feasted upon as what we would often think of fiestas. I believe it is not just the fun we have all day long being with family and friends. It’s not even the carnival at all. People just go there because it is there. So what is it really?

People come to Jaro because of their “pana-ad” to the Blessed Virgin Mary. “Pana-ad” somehow means promise accorded with the sense of loyalty or “utang nga kabalaslan” (gratitude) that binds people together as family and beyond as kins, to clans and tribes, and later on, as nations. This is how profound the sense of “pana-ad” is to societal development. In fact, it is a principle for human relationships. Thus, special to the experience of Jaro, “pana-ad” is accorded not to anybody else but to a mother; which all the more, symbolically, binds us to her, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, just like any other children to their mother. That explains why people, who are not even “tumandok” of Jaro (or Sarong), take a pause from their daily “normal” lives to go and pay homage to the Virgin as she is the mother humanity.

Jaro Cathedral, where Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria “lives,” will be declared the 18th National Marian Shrine today. Its official declaration will be during the solemn high mass at 7 o’clock in the morning, presided by the Archbishop of Jaro, Most. Rev. Angel N. Lagdameo, D.D. This declaration coincides with the 30th celebration of her Canonical Coronation and of naming her as Patroness of Western Visayas by Pope John Paul II.

Long time ago, the Greeks have this same “pana-ad” but rendered alive only to a mythological god or goddess. Everything, from that standpoint, leads the Greeks to live their lives in accord with the “spirit” that binds them: the will of their patron god or goddess. The life of the city-state exudes this “spirit” by how the people live, by how the people celebrate it even in the ordinariness of their lives. From that, a whole civilization flourishes; a history written.

The “coming home” today must bring with it that “pana-ad” once again, passed on to us one generation after the other, with that same fervor over the “promise with loyalty and gratitude” deeply rooted from that love a mother and child have for each other.

We have now where else to go but, safely, in the bosom of our mother, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria. --- Hail, Holy Queen!*