October in Old Manila is so famously nostalgic because this was the month of the city’s greatest and grandest procession proudly referred by the old Manileños as La Naval de Manila. Touted during the prewar years as the procesion de los procesiones, the event pays tribute to the Blessed Virgin as Nuestra Señora de Santissimo Rosario for Her miraculous intervention during a series of battles in 1646 that concluded in favor of the Spaniards over the Dutch pirates.
The procession is no longer held in Intramuros since the old Dominican church where the image of the La Naval was originally enshrined was destroyed during World War II. Today, the procession is held at the Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City.
A Glimpse of Majesty and Taste of Heaven
According to our National Artist Nick Joaquin, the image of “La Naval was embellished with gold, silver and precious stones and those who gazed upon Her got a glimpse of majesty and taste of heaven.”
The image of the La Naval was a legacy of Governor General Luis Perez Dasmariñas who wanted a statue to memorialized both his deceased father (murdered by Chinese) and the his own regime. The beautiful image was carved from ivory by a non-Catholic Chinese who was later converted. Governor Dasmariñas entrusted the image to the Dominicans and was enshrined at the Santo Domingo Church in Intramuros.
The image is garbed in yards of precious tisu de oro embroidered with silver gilt thread. The high-karat golden crowns of the Virgin and the Infant Jesus are studded with various precious jewels mostly gifts from generations of devotees who considered the Virgin as another heiress of the family jewels. Nick Joaquin himself, a devotee of the La Naval donated his gold plated bronze National Artist medallion which is now part of the many treasures of the La Naval.
During World War II, La Naval together with Her vestments, jewels and crowns miraculously survived the inferno that reduce the old Santo Domingo Church in Intramuros to rubble and ashes.
Today the La Naval remains one of the most venerated images in the Philippine and its October procession reigns as the procesion de los procesiones in its new shrine in Quezon City.
Processions of all Processions
Nick Joaquin left us with a description of Old Manila’s procesion de los procesiones. He said that in “an October evening while watching this procession of La Naval, and having divined, by a general excitement, the approach of the image, he ahs heard the cries of trumpets of the passing concourse. He has seen her blazed into vision against the skies of his city, born upon cloud of incense and music, her face on fire with jewels and mysterious with the veneration of centuries, with gleaming rainbows forming and falling all about her and silken doves bobbing whitely among her flowers of gold and silver –Oh, beautiful and radiant as an apparition! –the Presence at Lepanto, Lady and Queen and Mother of Manila and Virgin of the Fifteen Mysteries.”
The La Naval procession in Old Manila only features ten statues of Dominican saints like San Pedro Verona, Santa Rosa de Lima, Santo Tomas de Aquino, Santo Domingo de Guzman, San Jose, etc. They are interspersed with estandares or banners of the Fifteen Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Still the La Naval de Manila is the longest and grandest of the Intramuros processions.
It was a time-honored tradition in Old Manila for the faithful to kneel reverently even on the Intramuros cobbled streets as the image of the Nuestra Señora de Santissimo Rosario passed by during the La Naval de Manila Procession.
Last year we attended the Grand La Naval Procession at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City. It was also same year when the centenary of the canonical coronation of the first Marian image in Philippines and in Asia was celebrated. We witness how the crowd went on a state of energetic calm while waving their white handkerchiefs in the air as the boat-shaped carroza bearing the La Naval exited the main door of Santo Domingo Church to the streets.
Fellow blogger Estan Cabigas captured the splendor of last year’s La Naval.
i would certainly love to visit manila again just for that procession. i have seen also estan’s post about it and it was truly grand and inspirational. thanks for sharing bro.
pre, thanx for the link. La Naval is indeed one of the grandier Marian festivity in the country.
I like the La Naval celebration since then oman because the procession has remained solemn and traditional unlike some others that has turned to be too commercialized (with sponsors and all).
I like the way you presented La Naval estan. Very engaging.
i like this article and collection of pictures of the La Naval procession. I have been singing for this event for more than a decade now, before as a member of the Tiples de Sto Domingo and now as a member of the Male Chorale, and indeed this event is a big part of my being. I have also been in touched with a lot of people who are devotees of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, La Naval de Manila. It is always a nice feeling to see people write about this magnificent event and to hear different stories of how this has become a part of their lives as well..
Thanks..
I miss the Philippines.. I miss having a vacation this coming christmas. Go Filipinos