Peñafrancia Fluvial and the Pagoda

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This is part four of the photo recap of the Penafrancia fluvial procession last Saturday.

We focus our attention on the volunteer devotees, the people that paddles manually the boats all stringed together pulling the “vancuerna” or “pagoda” or the barge that carries about one hundred fifty people including the images of the Virgin of Peñafrancia and the Divino Rostro.

The barge used here was the same vessel used on previous year of fluvial procession. According to our source, the barge was inspected and reinforced to make sure it is fit to traverse and complete the fluvial activity and that the people on board are safe.

Good to note here, there never has been a woman allowed to get into the barge during the fluvial event ever since the tradition of returning the images to their permanent homes from an absence of nine days.

During those nine days, the images stayed at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Nine days of Catholic novenas were recited at the cathedral.


Photos by our Tony Abalayan, Jr.
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