Baliuag’s Good Friday Procession

The streets illumined with lights from burning candles, the solemn sound of prayers in unison and the life-sized statues depicting the Life and Passion of Jesus, the Baliuag Good Friday Procession is regarded as the longest and grandest procession in the Philippines.

The origin of this procession can be traced back to the Augustinian Missionaries who established the town in 1733.

A seeming mixture of faith and culture, the spectacle and grandeur of this tradition which perhaps attracted the early Christian inhabitants of Baliuag continues to this day as a pious devotion to God and as a tradition which links families together.

In the early 1960s, the Prusisyon ng Paglilibing or the Burial Procession is made up of 16 Carrozas where images of the Sorrowful Virgin, of holy men and women follow the well decorated bier of the Dead Christ in an attempt to accompany Christ to His tomb in Jerusalem.

However, during the latter part of the 1960’s to fos- ter piety and to catechize the faithful, the local Bishop, Leopoldo Arcaira, encouraged families from the town to sponsor a carroza that will be an additional depiction of a scene in the life of Jesus. Among the first carrozas to feature larger than life images are that of the Last Supper, which were then followed by various scenes in the Agony in the Garden, Jesus Before Pilate, and various depictions of Jesus carrying the cross until His crucifixion and death in Mount Calvary.

The campaign of the Bishop became so successful that later on starting from the 1980s up to the present, more and more families became interested in commissioning other tableaux. Hence, scenes from the Life and Ministry of Jesus were also incorporated in the procession. Here are some that would leave anyone in awe.

The carroza depicting Jesus as He is being taken down from the cross is an eye-stopper where all the biblical characters present in the crucifixion are seemingly ‘incarnated’ in life size images and garbed with baroque outfits.

After the pandemic, the Baliuagenos are looking forward in a special way to the 2023 Procession since the 128 carrozas will once again trav- erse the streets of their beloved hometown.

More people are eager and are looking forward to this highlight of the year since this procession for them evokes a very profound spiritual encounter colored with tradition, culture and an annual reunion of families.

Faithful to their tradition, the lengthy procession will start at 6:00 in the evening and as usual, as the last carroza leaves the Patio, the very first ones that left earlier have returned. This year’s procession will be very significant and historical since it will be the first procession of their beloved Baliuag after having been declared as a City.

Easter in the Philippines

While majority of the people in the world are busy painting eggs for Easter egg hunting, Filipinos hold vigil Saturday night, Sabado de Gloria, at the church waiting for Easter.

This is the Filipino way of celebrating Easter Sunday, the end of the Holy Week and the conclusion of the Lenten Season. Devotees spend the night at the church singing praises while waiting for the morning light to creep in.

At the streak of the dawn, normally at 4 a.m., they perform the ritual called “Salubong” re-enacting the scene of the meeting between the risen Christ and Mama Mary.

In some areas, processions are done to do the ritual. The statues of the risen Christ and Mama Mary draped in black veil, are paraded separately. They will meet and merge in a designated area where performers are singing and dancing to celebrate the occasion.

The highlight of the ritual is when an angel, performed by a young performer, lifts the veil off Mama Mary’s statue as she and the risen Christ meet. The lifting of the veil signifies the end of Mama Mary’s sorrow following the death of Jesus Christ.

Easter Sunday is the highest of all religious and cultural festivals, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Said to be oldest, the Carroza of the “Pieta” which mystically evokes the maternal gaze of the Sorrowful Virgin Mary together with Mary Magdalene, John the Apostle, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus who all gathered to venerate and pay their last respects to the dead body of Christ. The Images as well as the float have been handed down from generation to generations in the Garcia Family.