NAGA CITY — A strictly spiritual and religious celebration of the Lady of Penafrancia feast will begin on Sept. 10 in this city.

Archbishop of Caceres Leonardo Z. Legazpi said that past celebrations for the “Ina, Our Lady of Penafrancia” had always been tainted with excesses in commercialism, and this took away the solemnity of the annual religious event.

Archbishop Legaspi said that a dialogue was held with the city government, and it was agreed that “religious zones” will be established on the routes of the “traslacion” and the fluvial parade. In these zones, commercial activities will be strictly prohibited, he said.

Prospective election candidates, the archbishop said, will not be allowed to ride in the boat that will bear the image of Ina, Our Lady of Penafrancia.

Other religious officials here said that Penafrancia is primarily a religious event, and so other activities like beer plaza and beauty pageants remove the spiritual solemnity of the occasion.

The Dominican archbishop of Caceres said that in the past years, more than one-million devotees and pilgrims attended the annual celebration, and their devotions were marred sometimes by the lewd festivities.

The annual Penafrancia religious festival culminates in the fluvial parade.

The Sept. 10 celebration will test if the spiritual direction of the festival will be strictly enforced. It will also determine if the people, especially the owners and operators of commercial establishments, will cooperate.

Archbishop Legaspi, who hails from Meycauayan, Bulacan, has been serving the Caceres here for over six years.

This year’s theme of the Penafrancia celebration is “Renewing Faith through Ina,” and because of this, the devotion must be deeply inculcated in the pilgrims and devotees.

The fluvial parade in honor of the Our Lady of Penafrancia has had its tragedies in the past. These include the death of more than 100 devotees who were killed when the bridge on where they were watching the fluvial parade collapsed. In an another tragedy, dozens of devotees drowned when the boat bearing the image capsized due to overloading.

In the latter tragedy, the expensive crown of Ina was lost in the river, and it was recovered a year after.

The statue of the Our Lady Of Penafrancia was stolen during the martial-law years. Then First Lady Imelda Marcos ordered a hunt for the robbers. The statue was returned by one of four robbers, and the fate of the three others were not known nor were they ever found.

Church records here showed that the devotion to Our Lady of Penafrancia started in Salamanca, Spain in 1434 through a lay visionary Simon Vela. Father Miguel Robles de Covarrubias.