| |
World War II served as a showcase of the Filipino talent in the USA workforce. After the third wave of sakada immigration to Hawaii in the 1940s, the United States opened recruitment for military personnel, professionals and other employment opportunities for the Filipinos. To a lot of Bicolanos, signing up with the military, particularly with the US Navy became an obsession. By the 70’s, quite a few dozens military enlisted men of Bicolano ancestry and their families have claimed Honolulu as their second home.
Seeking to fill up the cultural and spiritual void in their lives, 19 Bicolano families pulled their resources together to form the Bicol Club of Hawaii, a social, cultural and charitable organization which was prayer-based with ardent devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia, the patroness of Bicol region so much so that one of its first projects was to organize a novena to the Patroness of Bicolandia which ended on her feast day just like in the old country except that novenas in Honolulu where done only on Saturdays, the day when the majority of its members would be available to pray and cook special dishes to share with each other.
Its founding fathers were Enting & Yeyet Alisago, Joe & Anita Ballesteros, Ben & Carmen Bearis, Mike & Julie Bergado, Fel & Paz Celebrado, Eugene (Papa) & Hilda Cruz, Pete & Vita Esmeralda, Ike and Dory Espiritu, Mike & Rose Filio, Enas & Pacing Florece, Eugene & Nita Gonzalez, Henry & Sally Imperial, Ding & Beth Lazo, Joe & Pilar Llorin, Rick & Norma Lopez, Virgil & Nellie Nagrampa, Lino & Loling Salcedo, Ben & Pacing Serano, and Moises and Puring Taburnal. Ike Espiritu, US Navy enlistee, from Nabua, Camarines Sur was its first president.
Officially, the Lady of Penafrancia came to Honolulu 30 years ago, when the Bicol Club of Hawaii was born. In all reality however, the Lady of Peñafrancia came to Hawaii when the first Bicolano set foot on this island for rarely will you see a migrating Bicolano devotee without her stampita in her luggage or her image in his heart.
When they started their novena in 1978, the Bicolano-Hawaiians used a colored picture of Our Lady of Peñafrancia saved from a calendar. “That was provided by the late Julie Bergado,” recalls Henry Imperial, a founding member of BCH. The framed picture is now on the wall of the Bearis residence at Ewa Beach. The first image of Our Lady of Peñafrancia came to Honolulu in 1981. “That was hand carried by the late Mrs. Josefina Cecilio, the mother of Dr. Badong Cecilio.” contributes Imperial. The same icon has been revered in the annual fluvial processions for the past 27 years using the boat of George De Guzman, a non-Bicolano devotee and honorary member of BCH. The same icon has been doing house calls from one Bicolano home to another during novenas. In 1988, with the assistance of Msgr. Nemesio Niebres and Imelda Papin, the Philippines’ Juke-Box queen and a Bicolana, Our Lady of Peñafrancia was canonically crowned by Mesdames Imelda Marcos at the Rainbow Marina, the favorite Fiesta-locale of the Peñafrancia.
| |
