Why devotees keep returning to Laguna’s centuries-old Turumba

LAGUNA, Philippines – Every year, the streets of Pakil, Laguna fill with songs and prayers. Devotees follow the image of the Birhen ng Hapis, or Our Lady of Sorrows, through town.

The celebration is known as the Turumba, a centuries-old devotion that has been part of the town’s identity for more than two hundred years. Held over seven months, it draws devotees from across Laguna, Quezon, and nearby provinces who return to join the procession, offer prayers, and fulfill personal vows.

But for those who come back year after year, the Turumba is more than a tradition preserved through generations. It is a place where people bring the things they cannot always carry alone.

Among them are mothers carrying their own experiences of loss, illness, and uncertainty, who see themselves in the sorrow of the Virgin Mary, a mother who once watched her own child suffer and could not take the pain away.

A devotion that found its home

The story of the Turumba itself began with another moment of uncertainty.

Legend has it that a missionary was once crossing Laguna de Bay carrying a small oil painting of the Birhen ng Hapis, measuring only 9×11 inches, when a sudden storm swept the image overboard.

Fishermen later found the image drifting in the lake. They tried to bring it to a church visible from the shore, but their boat moved freely only when they turned toward Pakil. They took it as a sign that the Virgin had chosen where she wanted to stay.

The fishermen left the image on a rock near a boat landing. The next morning coincided with the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Women who came to the landing found the painting untouched by the night’s rain, but no one could lift it from the rock.

When news reached parish priest Padre Miguel Soriano, he gathered the townspeople and walked toward the landing while singing. The moment he touched the image, it became easy to carry.

The crowd broke into singing and dancing right there on the shore.

“Magsi-awit tayo sa Birhen, magsayaw tayo sa Birhen, magpuri tayo sa Birhen, magsaya tayo sa Birhen (Let us sing to the Virgin, let us dance for the Virgin, let us praise the Virgin, let us rejoice for the Virgin).”

That celebration gave the devotion its name. 

“Turumba” comes from the phrase “natumbá sa laki ng tuwa,” trembling from overwhelming joy.

The image now carried during the procession, Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Turumba, is modeled after an older image from Spain, Nuestra Señora de las Antiguas.

The first Turumba was held on September 14, 1788, and the observance continues today, spread across seven months of celebration each year.

Mothers who see themselves in her grief

“Sa Birhen” echoes through Pakil’s streets as the procession moves on, but for many devotees, the prayer does not end there. Mothers walk alongside their families, some carrying children in their arms, bringing with them the same prayers and struggles they carried long before reaching Pakil.

In the sorrow of the Birhen ng Hapis, they recognize something close to their own: a mother who watched her child suffer and could only remain beside him.

Among them is Hannah, a mother from Pagbilao, Quezon, who rode two and a half hours by motorcycle to reach Pakil for her first Turumba procession. She had visited the town before, she said, but watching the Birhen ng Hapis pass this close was different.

“Sobra (So much),” she said, when asked if she felt Mary’s suffering as her own.“Kasi yung naging sakripisyo niya, kahit sa paghihirap ng kanyang anak, hindi niya ito natiis makita, pero ginawa niya pa rin (Even though she couldn’t bear to see her own child suffer, she still did what she had to do).” 

For Hannah, that sacrifice is what mothers give without condition.

“Bali ibigay mo lahat, lahat ng kailangan nila, lahat ng pagmamahal mo sa kanila, ibigay mo kahit na hirapan ka (You give everything. All they need, all the love you have for them, you give it even when it’s hard),” she said.

She also hopes to come back next year, this time with her husband beside her.

“Ang sarap pala ng feeling, lalo kapag nakita mong dumadaan si Mama Mary (It’s such a good feeling, especially when you see Mama Mary pass by).”

Evelyn has been returning to the Turumba since the 1980s, seeking the same thing every time, a steadiness and peace she finds nowhere else.

“Kasi tayong mga nanay, tayo rin ang nagdadala ng mga sakit ng ating asawa, ng ating mga anak (Because we mothers, we’re the ones who carry the burdens of our husbands, of our children too),” she said.

Through prayer and song before the Birhen ng Hapis, she said, those burdens grow lighter.

When medicine has limits

Many mothers come to the Birhen because they know what it means to watch someone they love suffer. In Pakil, Christina Ariles, better known by many as “Nurse Sten,” carries that experience through both her work and her life as a mother.

She has spent years as a nurse in the town, caring for other people through illness and pain. At home, she raises a child with a speech disability.

“Compared to normal parenthood or normal motherhood, my struggle being or having a special child is much, much different from a regular mom,” she shared.

“The anxieties brought about by having a child with special needs, and not knowing what to do when the time comes that everyone will die,” she confessed in a mix of English and Filipino. “Even if you are a normal person, you cannot say, ‘I’m prepared in everything.’”

“Kapag hindi na kayang sagutin ng doktor, ng mga nurse, o ng kahit anong tulong mula sa larangan ng medisina, isa na lang yung makapitan mo, yung faith na lang (When doctors, nurses, or any help from the medical field can no longer provide answers, faith is the only thing left to hold on to),” she added.

“Nakikita ko rin yung anak ko na may mga challenges siya, may mga pain siya, pero limitado yung magagawa mo (I also see my child facing challenges and pain, but there are limits to what you can do).”

Centuries ago, townspeople in Pakil celebrated after fishermen lifted the image of the Virgin from the waters of Laguna de Bay. They sang, danced, and gave the celebration its name, Turumba, from the trembling of overwhelming joy.

Today, the songs remain the same, but what devotees carry has changed with every generation that returns.

Hannah brings a wish she is only beginning to understand. Evelyn brings four decades of her family’s struggles, offered again each year through prayer and song. Christina brings the fear of a mother who does not know what tomorrow will ask of her.

None of them come to Pakil expecting the Turumba to take their burdens away. What they find instead is somewhere to set them down, if only for as long as the procession lasts, before picking them back up and carrying them home. – Rappler.com

Arabella Grace Sta. Ana is a Rappler intern studying BA Philosophy at UP Los Baños.