Bets welcome at Lucban shrine, but no campaigning

LUCENA CITY—With the annual surge of Lenten pilgrims expected at the Kamay ni Hesus (KNH) shrine in Lucban town in Quezon province, expect politicians running in this year’s elections to follow.

Fr. Joey Faller, the priest administering the shrine, said that while all candidates were welcome to the shrine, any form of election campaign activity was not.

“Do your politicking elsewhere,” he said. “Please respect the shrine. The place is God’s creation for worship and spiritual cleansing, not a venue for man’s partisan politics.”

“[But] I will for pray for them for guidance, enlightenment and for peaceful, honest and orderly elections,” he said.

Faller, known as the healing priest, said he would join candidates in praying for the intercession of more than 150 saints, whose images are scattered across the shrine in Barangay Tinamnan here, to guide Filipinos in choosing the right leaders for the country and local communities.

He said politicians may meet him at the shrine’s office and introduce themselves as candidates. But once inside the shrine, Faller reminded candidates that they should not resort to any campaign activity.

“No wearing of campaign shirts or distribution of anything to promote their candidacy. I will also discourage them from shaking hands with devotees or even having selfies,” Faller said.

The 5-hectare KNH shrine is a favorite destination of pilgrims and tourists during the Lenten season.

Inside the shrine is the 300-step “Stairway to Heaven” that features a 15.24 meter (50-foot) statue of the Risen Christ on top of a hill. The concrete statue is touted to be the third tallest icon of Jesus Christ in the world after that in Bolivia (21.33 meters, or 70 feet) and that in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (45.72 meters, or 150 feet).

With the expected surge of visitors in the coming days, Faller said, he and his staff at the shrine have been receiving requests from campaign workers to conduct activities inside the shrine.

“But we all politely declined their requests. And I think they understood,” Faller said.

He also warned politicians against putting up campaign posters and streamers along the roads leading to the shrine.

“[Although] these areas are already outside the shrine … most [pilgrims treat] any campaign material within the vicinity of the shrine [as] vulgar, ‘epal’ (attention-seeker),” he said.

Faller said he would not endorse any candidate, noting that priests must not be involved in partisan politics.

“[The role of the Church] is to prepare, enlighten and guide the faithful to choose candidates based on the dictates of their conscience and the will of God,” he said.

Faller, citing figures that KNH reported to the Department of Tourism, said the shrine had received about 2 million visitors in the past two weeks.

During last year’s Lenten season, it hosted 3.7 million devotees from all over the country. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon