NAGA CITY, Philippines—During the last vigil for the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, throngs of mourners filed in a single line that snaked some 60 meters from the gates into the Minore Basilica where the image of his beloved “Ina,” the Our Lady of Peñafrancia, hovered from a pedestal near the altar.
Since he was 16 years old, Robredo was known in this city which he served as mayor for 19 years as steadfast in joining the processions for the Ina every second Friday of September.
He always found time to be a ‘voyador’, one of the volunteer male image bearers of the icon during its three-kilometer journey from the Minore Basilica in Barangay Balatas to the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown Naga City.
SPO2 Randy Solano, police on duty at the command center on the side of the road beside the Basilica, estimated the stream of people coming in and out of the church compound to have reached between 50,000 and 100,000 from 11 p.m. Monday to 10 a.m. Monday.
Solano said more than 1,200 police personnel were deployed inside and outside of the premises of the Basilica.
He said there were buses and other vehicles that came in with mourners from Laguna, Samar and other provinces in Bicol.
Evoking the Peñafrancia Fiesta’s mood amid mourning, a number of vendors outside the church compound were hawking Robredo t-shirts and souvenirs such as refrigerator magnets, pins, nail cutters and umbrellas.
The multitude of mourners gathered in the yard of the Basilica, imposing with its facade of stained glass and Romanesque architecture, where people sat on monobloc chairs shaded by wide garden tents, intently watching on the LED wide screen the ANC’s Storyline edition of Robredo’s journey in government service, which was updated with clips recounting the hours of the plane crash to the retrieval of the body.
Coming from all walks of life, the crowd clapped at the end of the Storyline’s episode and switched to watching the live relay of the coverage of Robredo’s wake where people were queuing to pay their last respects to Robredo in front of the altar and retablo of Our Lady of Peñafrancia.
After getting to touch the sealed casket of Robredo, a few hundred people still loitered around to join the rest of the mourners in the yard of the Basilica where local bands were playing live music to entertain the crowd.
The crowd and the music continued until past 12 midnight.
As in the Peñafrancia Festival, hotels in the city were fully booked for the wake and funeral of Robredo.