Rama eyes rosary marker at V. Rama

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is planning to establish a permanent marker of the Holy Rosary along V. Rama Avenue as part of the city’s tourism, culture and arts and spiritual and religious sites.

“It will be lighted. Then, makita nimo ang whole stretch of V. Rama as the home of the Holy Rosary,” he said during yesterday’s launching of the 18th “Buhing Kalbaryo.”

Some 145 out-of-school youths, parents and city officials, who form part of the Buhing Kalbaryo cast, yesterday staged a short play depicting the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The main characters are played by Simeon Romarate, executive director of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, legal counsel Joy Pesquera, among others. Romarate played the role of Pontius Pilate while Pesquera played the role of Mother Mary.

Buhing Kalbaryo project director George Chu said they have been practicing for a month now to make the play and the entire production a real one.

“We have to present better and best,” he said.

He hopes that it would “bring people closer to God.”

Rama advised the performers to keep their passion alive to achieve a “complete conversion.”

The Buhing Kalbaryo, a Good Friday tradition, is the reenactment of the passion, death and burial of Jesus Christ that will be held on the streets of Barangays San Nicolas Proper, Calamba and Guadalupe.

The 4.5 kilometer procession will start from the Archdiocesan Shrine of San Nicolas de Tolentino and end in the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

It will be in San Nicolas where the reenactment of the sentencing of Jesus Christ will be held. He will then walk carrying the cross to the Guadalupe Church where he will be crucified. — (FREEMAN)