Sto. Niño de Cebu bids farewell to Antipolo devotees

ANTIPOLO City, January 29, 2012—The pilgrim image of Sto. Niño de Cebu went off to his next destination in Batangas after staying with the Antipolo faithful for eight days, from January 22.

A farewell Mass was celebrated in the honor of the Child Jesus, whose miraculous image has been the key in Christianizing the Visayans during the Spanish colonization.

Mrs. Virginia Torregoza, 63, and a widow for six years, who had seen the Sto. Niño said that she was blessed by the mere image of the Child Jesus from Cebu.

“Masaya ako dahil nakita ko Siya,” she said in a short interview.

Sto. Niño de Cebu is one of the oldest images in the Philippines, aged 400 years old. It was a gift to Rajah (King) Humabon, later baptized Carlos then the chieftain of Cebu and to his wife, Hara Amihan, who was later renamed Juana, after her conversion to Christianity. The image was given by Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan on April 5, 1521 as a token for the birth of Christianity in Central Philippines. [Noel Sales Barcelona/CBCPNews]