If you are a bonafide Marian devotee and a Bicolano, the annual highlight of your devotion will surely be  the Peñafrancia Festival in Naga City in September.

Every year, the whole of Bicol will go to Naga to partake of the Peñafrancia holiday, the biggest Marian banquet of the state. It’s also considered one of the first holidays mixing faith, culture and custom in a 9-day range of festivities which include civic and army parades, sports holidays, carnivals and exhibitions, regattas, cultural events, beauty festivals, and other dynamic competition. The holiday is the Bicolanos devotion to the Our Lady of Peñafrancia, whom Bicolanos fondly call “Ina” (mother).

The holiday climaxes as the image is escorted along the Bicol River, where a raft ( pagoda ) of the Holy Image is placed. Beside he pagoda are canoes and other rafts of bamboo and decorated motor boats. Before the night finally envelopes the area,  candles are lit as jewel-like flickers in the darkness. Throughout the procession, advocates echo the cries of “Viva la Virgen” and “Viva El Divino Rostro” for the Holy Photographs.

The weight of the image is moved through the help of  male devotees or “voyadores” and they walk on shoeless and with colored banners on their heads or arms. On the side of the streets and river,  steadfast say the novenas and pray the rosary.

As people walk in a gulf of faces under the scorching heat of the afternoon or the downpour of the rain, which is very likely in the month of September, everyone seems to be forget their discomfort as they’re crushed by other pilgrims. All these excitement and pious veneration is given to the Mother of God, and Her Son Jesus.