MANILA, Philippines (AP) – A massive crowd of Filipino Roman Catholic devotees jammed Manila’s streets Saturday for an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ, which was held under extra heavy security following the Paris attacks.
About 5,000 police and soldiers were deployed to secure the daylong procession of the Black Nazarene in one of Asia’s largest religious festivals, although no specific threat has been monitored. The huge crowd has reached more than a million by Saturday noon, Manila police Chief Superintendent Rolando Nana said.
The raucous gathering is a security nightmare in a poor Southeast Asian country still battling Muslim extremists in the south and widespread crimes. Police sharpshooters stood by and surveillance drones were flown over the slow-moving procession.
More than 100 people fainted or got bruised in the initial hours while jostling through the thick crowds to get close to or have their white towels wiped on the wooden statue of Christ, which was on a carriage pulled by a rope by men in maroon shirts, according to the local Red Cross.
The wooden statue of a Christ, crowned with thorns and bearing a cross, is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila on a galleon in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived. Some believe the statue’s survival from fires and earthquakes through the centuries, and intense bombings during World War II, is a testament to its mystical powers.