By Arlie Calalo

CHILDREN may join the vigil tomorrow of the Black Nazarene feast but they are barred from Friday?s procession to avoid injuries and even death, a Quiapo church official said yesterday.

Fr. Venus Suarez, assistant parish priest of the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene, said organizers have taken measures to protect minors in the yearly event.

He told Catholic-based Radyo Veritas that children would be disallowed to mix with the mostly barefoot devotees in maroon shirts and towels around the neck, struggling to touch the icon.

?For their safety, we have decided not to allow children... because of the big number of people that usually join the procession,? Suarez said.

But the youth can queue up to the Quiapo icon at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta.

?We advice them especially the youth to just join the overnight vigil anyway they are more capable of staying up late.?

Not a few practicing Catholics believe that the annual vow to join the procession and touch the statue would bring blessings if not healing from some dreaded diseases.

Vice President Noli de Castro counts himself among the faithful who takes to the feast with the same devotion as to a pilgrimage.

Despite some criticisms from devotees, this year?s organizing committee led by Msgr. Clemente Ignacio, Quiapo parish priest, the procession will start at the Luneta.

With the revered image taking the lead, the procession will take Burgos Street to Rizal Avenue, Recto Avenue, Legarda Street, Arlegui Street and back to its home in Quiapo church, according to Ignacio.

Departing from practice, organizers deemed it fit to decongest the usual route of the devotees, whose numbers have steadily increased from an estimated half a million in 2006 to 1.8 million last year.

But with the vigil, some quarters reckoned that the feast was able to draw up to 3 million people although the sheer numbers also took its toll with two people dead reportedly due to heart failure and at least 40 injured.

After the Mass officiated by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales at 7 a.m., the procession would start immediately, Ignacio said.

The feast day marks the transfer from Intramuros of the life-sized statue to its enshrinement in Quiapo church on Jan. 9, 1967.

The darkened tone is believed to be due to the statue?s having survived fires that gutted the church in 1791 and 1929 apart from the earhtquakes of 1645 and 1863 and the carpet bombings in World War II.