Diyandi Festival celebrates harmony among Iligan City’s Christian, Muslim and Higaonon communities
ILIGAN CITY—Anna Liza Lluch takes pride in being a devotee for the last 32 years of St. Michael the Archangel, this city’s patron whose feast is observed every Sept. 29. During the traditional procession, Lluch would usually portray the saint who is regarded as commander of heaven’s forces, leading God’s army in the conquest of evil. Instilled by her family from a young age, the devotion helped her overcome adversities, including being healed after a serious accident at a mall staircase that left her unable to walk for five months. Another devotee, Pura Saladumpa, 62, recalled joining the procession since her elementary school days. She attributes to St. Michael her ability of seeing through various significant changes in her life, especially bringing healing to her kidney ailment. Miracles occur if one sincerely requests the intervention of St. Michael, Saladumpa said, citing her own experience. This year, Saladumpa not only prayed for her personal intentions but also for peace in the city. St. Michael became Iligan’s patron in 1834 when it became a separate parish from what used to be Cagayan de Misamis (present-day Cagayan de Oro City). From being a Spanish colonial-era settlement in 1832, Iligan progressed into a melting pot of Christians, Muslims and indigenous Higaonon peoples. In the Catholic faith, St. Michael is associated with spiritual courage, protection and continuing struggle to subdue the forces of darkness. Among the faithful in Iligan, his feast is celebrated in gratitude for his coming to the aid of the Christian, Muslim and Higaonon so they are able to peacefully settle their differences and live harmoniously as a community. His feast is also a thanksgiving by the faithful for the triumph over the devil who swooped down on the community to destroy the people’s unity and their source of living, as well as in aiding them to rise again. Challenge This narrative hews closely to the travail of the Catholic prelature. In the early 1970s, then led by Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud, it pioneered interfaith dialogue in the Lanao provinces, reaching out to Muslims in the hope of finding a path for peace and mutual coexistence amid the brewing social conflicts in Mindanao. Tudtud would later head the Prelature of St. Mary in Marawi City which the Vatican created not for proselytization but “to provide a reconciling presence with the Muslims.” When the prelature became a diocese in 1982, first led by Bishop
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