100. SANTOS MILAGROSOS: Miracle-Working Saint Figures

Since time immemorial, Christian history is replete with extraordinary accounts of sacred images involved in unexplained and supernatural happenings—statues weeping, bleeding, walking and talking while providing divine cures for all sorts of diseases while converting sinners and bringing them back to the Christian fold. Through the years, there have also been reports of ‘miracles’ associated with Philippine santos as these photographic evidence show, creating mass hysteria in their time and developing cult followings that many continue to this day.

SAN PEDRO’S MIRACLE IN MALOLOS

In Barrio Tikay, Malolos, province of Bulacan, a spring miraculously appeared in the mid 1920s at the back of the ‘visita’ that was attributed to a San Pedro figure housed in the small chapel. The visita became a local shrine of some sorts, visited by devotees and the sick who bathed and drank the water from the site in the hope of finding a cure, much like the waters of Lourdes. The spring is still there to this day.

MANILA’S HIMALANG KRUS

On 23 March 1922, on San Juan St., Gagalangin, Tondo, Manila, a laborer split open a tree trunk and found the figure of a cross both faces of the split trunk. The crosses were clearly delineated on the tree trunk halves, showing two perfect crosses standing on their bases. The discovery of the crosses created quite a stir all over the city, and the trunks were eventually encased in metal sheets and glass, for public display to throngs of devotees who believed the event to be great miracle.

LAGUNA’S NUESTRA SEÑORA DE MOLAVE

In 1910, a resident of Sta. Cruz, Laguna was sawing a molave tree for his house construction, but was stumped when he could not cut the mulawin hardwood. With the aid of several workers, he managed to cut half the wood, which, to his surprise contained the outline of what appears to be the Blessed Virgin. He used the wood anyway, as house posts.

In two instances, however, he was saved twice by a mysterious voice from certain danger. The first was when he was roused from his sleep by this voice who warned him of a fire in the house. On another occasion, the same voice warned him of thieves barging into the house—which was successfully averted when the man woke up and drove the thieves away.

Soon, Laguna folks came flocking to his house to see the “Nstra. Sra. De Molave”. One man even offered P3,000 to buy it. It was also whispered about that Mons. Gregorio Aglipay, head of the Philippine Independent Church, even offered to build a church to house the sacred wood.