BALANGA CITY, Bataan, (PNA) — The Diocese of Balanga will hold processions on Saturday as a way to demonstrate strong opposition to the alleged misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or “pork barrel” funds.
Bishop Ruperto C. Santos is asking the Catholic faithful in the province to participate in two processions to start simultaneously at 4 a.m. at the Saint Catherine of Siena church in Samal town and at the Saint John de Baptist church in Orani.
The two processions will meet and end at the Virgen Milagrosa del Rosario church in Orani where a Holy Mass will be held.
The bishop is calling on the participants to offer acts of contrition and consecration.
“The Holy Rosary is our hope and strength as we are weeping for our nation which is confronting scandal on pork barrel,” Santos said.
“Through the procession and the recitation of the Holy Rosary, we will knock into the hearts of some in government to change their evil ways and for those doing good to continue doing so,” he said.
Participants in the procession and the Holy Mass will also be asked to promise of having a credible barangay election, of being friendly to the environment and to oppose contraceptives.
Through the Marian procession, the Diocese expressed hope that its request to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to turn the Orani parish into a national shrine will be realized.
He said that when the first Dominican fathers arrived in the Philippines, the missionaries carried with them three Santo Rosarios – La Naval in Sto. Domingo, Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan and Virgen Milagrosa in Orani.
“Like La Naval and Manaoag which became places of pilgrimage, we are wishing our town will also become an area of prayer and devotion not only in the month of October but a whole-year round,” Santos said.