A mammoth crowd of mostly barefoot Filipino Catholics joined a raucous procession yesterday of the centuries-old image of the Black Nazarene under extra-tight security due to fears of terrorism and recent bomb attacks in Cotabato City.

Police estimated up to five million people joined the dawn-to-midnight festivity that also celebrated the anniversary of Quiapo Church.

Police said they have not monitored any specific security threat, but they deployed more than 7,000 personnel, including bomb squads backed by a surveillance helicopter, to secure the annual procession of the wooden Black Nazarene along Manila’s streets.

The spectacle reflects the unique brand of Catholicism which includes folk superstitions, in Asia’s largest Catholic nation

Authorities imposed gun and liquor bans and cell phone signals were jammed in the vicinity of the procession. Flights over the area were prohibited along with sailing in nearby Manila Bay and along a key river where special police and Coast Guard forces watched over bridges that the mass of devotees passed through.

Despite the threats and the tropical heat, mobs of devotees garbed in maroon-color shirts dangerously squeezed their way into the tight pack of humanity around a carriage carrying the life-sized statue of Christ. They threw small towels at volunteers on the carriage, which was being pulled by ropes, to wipe parts of the cross and the statue in the belief that the Nazarene’s powers cure ailments and ensure good health and a better life.

Crowned with thorns and bearing a cross, the Nazarene statue is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila on a galleon in 1606 by Spanish missionaries. The ship that carried it caught fire, but the charred statue survived. Some believe the statue’s endurance from fires and earthquakes through the centuries and intense bombings during World War II is a testament to its powers.

Crowned with thorns and bearing a cross, the Nazarene statue is believed to have been brought from Mexico to Manila on a galleon in 1606 by Spanish missionaries.

The spectacle reflects the unique brand of Catholicism, which includes folk superstitions, in Asia’s largest Catholic nation. Dozens of Filipinos have themselves nailed to crosses on Good Friday in another tradition to emulate Christ’s suffering that draws huge crowds and tourists each year.

Police forces have been placed on full alert ahead of Wednesday’s religious gathering amid military offensives against Muslim militants aligned with the Islamic State group who have been blamed for a spate of bombings and other attacks in the volatile south.

Last week, suspected Muslim militants remotely detonated a bomb that killed two people and wounded about 30 others near the entrance of a shopping mall in a southern Cotabato city as people did last-minute shopping ahead of the New Year’s Eve celebrations. AP