Pilgrimage to Manaoag a disappointment

Last Holy Thursday (April 17), my family and I traveled to the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Manaoag in Pangasinan. Given that it was a day when hundreds of thousands of Filipinos trek to the provinces to spend the holidays in their hometowns, we were not surprised to encounter horrendous bottlenecks on the entire length of MacArthur Highway and North Luzon Expressway (NLEx). From Quezon City, it took us a full seven hours to reach Manaoag, “helped” along by uncouth drivers who barreled through the unpaved shoulders of NLEx, further clogging the already jammed superhighway.

But the intense anticipation of prayer, reflection and spiritual nourishment led to complete disappointment. The Manaoag Shrine is a victim of very bad management by the former and current archbishops of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan, Oscar Cruz and Socrates Villegas, respectively.

The environment of the shrine and the cathedral itself is unfriendly to both tourists and regular devotees of the Virgin of Manaoag. With the crush of visitors, the inside of the cathedral is definitely claustrophobic! Also, the venerated statue of the Blessed Virgin certainly deserves a better location that is more spacious and more accessible to devotees.

There is no decent coffee shop or eatery for the hungry, only the ubiquitous vendors of native delicacies (kakanin). And the garden near the cathedral offered no solace, with those religious statues that are definitely lacking in elegance and taste!

Where are the millions of pesos that this shrine collects from visitors? Could the archbishops not allocate money for the services of a Castrillo or a Caedo, or any excellent local sculptor, to carve decent religious statues to replace the present ugly ones?

Archbishops Cruz and Villegas are two of the vociferous critics of the Aquino administration. How sad that they can see the shortcomings of the administration, but not the ugliness in their own backyard. Why can’t they at least fix the parking lot at the back of the cathedral, which is worse than the moon’s surface? That would be a more laudable goal than ranting against the Reproductive Health bill (now a law) and declaring contraception as “corruption,” or talking incessantly about jueteng, with no tangible results.

—CARLOS D. ISLES,

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