A while ago, I was with my friend, Julian to watch the annual Bocaue Pagoda Festival. The fiesta is in honor of the Black Cross of Wawa that was found floating in Bocaue River centuries ago. It was later brought to the parish church where it is currently venerated. This w
as my first time to watch the festivities considering that Meycauayan, where I live, is just two towns away. Pista ng Mahal na Poong Krus ng Wawa of Bocaue is one of the town's pride of place until the tragedy of 1993 when the allegedly poorly-constructed pagoda sank and drowned many of its townsfolk. Since then, the happy air of the fiesta was stained with tears beacause of the lives lost and sacrificed.
Post-1993
This year, like the years after the 1993 tragedy, the pagoda is much smaller as compared to those magnificently constructed pagodas before the accident. I learned that the municipal government regulated the construction of the pagoda each year as regards to the size of pagoda and the materials to be used. This was made in order to avoid disasters like that of the accident of 1993. Devotees and townsfolk were no longer allowed to join the fluvial procession. Only the organizers and several parishioners were allowed to embark and join the Mahal na Krus in its pagoda.
The 2009 FiestaThe fluvial procession, called Ligiran, starts right after the high mass as the revered cross is born in a procession through the streets of Bocaue to the river bank. Then, the cross will be transfered and placed at the top of the pagoda so that the people watching at the river banks can see the
poon as the pagoda makes its rounds, back and forth, via Bocaue and Wawa Rivers. After making its two rounds, the Cross will be disembarked from the pagoda, placed again in its bedecked carozza and then the procession will again grace the main streets of Bocaue back to its shrine.
Reviving what was lostAlthough the lives of those who have died in the tragedy will no longer be revived, the organizing committee is trying to revive the happy air of the fiesta. Slowly, boats and barges with devotees are now starting to accompany the Mahal na Poon again in the procession. I hope that the old grandeur of the construction of the pagoda will be revived, even on a smaller scale.
For those who would like to see models and pictures of the past Bocaue pagodas, they are currently exhibited at the ground floor of SM Marilao.
