Moriones Festival kicks off on Palm Sunday

BOAC, Marinduque – The highly anticipated and world-renowned Moriones Festival kicked off on Palm Sunday in this heart-shaped, island-province of Marinduque, the country’s Lenten capital.

The festival opened with 5 a.m. Masses in all the province’s parishes, followed by the “hosanahans” or processions around the six town centers of Marinduque celebrating Christ’s entry to Jerusalem with participants showing off their gaily decorated “palaspas” (palm fronds). The Palm Sunday Masses then followed, where the participants’ palm fronds were blessed with holy water.

There were also “estacion heneral” or makeshift altars mounted in front of selected houses in the town centers that serve as points where the Stations of the Cross were relived by the faithful.

For the duration of the Holy Week, there will be the traditional crowd-drawing Lenten activities such as the “Pasyon” (Passion of Christ), “cenaculo” (dramatization of the suffering of Christ), “visita iglesia” (church visits) and the “via crucis” (way of the Cross).

Each of the province’s six towns will stage one or the other of such activities, with every part of the island pulsating with religious fervor during the season.

The stars of the festival, the morions or masked centurions, will have their first appearance at the traditional parade of the Morions and Samaritanas to be held today (Monday) at the Boac town proper.

The parade will feature local residents, public and private officials and employees donning morion-inspired costumes and or costumes of biblical characters turning Boac, the capital town of the province, into a “small Jerusalem.”

Thereafter, as a daily showcase for the Holy Week, the morions will roam around the towns to fulfill their vows.

Residents here believed that becoming a morion ensures good health, or helps the devotee recover from illness and keeps him out of danger and guarantees a good harvest for farmers and bountiful catch for fishermen.

A trade expo, featuring Marinduque products and from other provinces, will open after the parade on Holy Monday at the Boac Moriones Arena.