Above: A circa-1960s poster of the Sto. Niño de Cebu.

The Sto. Niño de Cebu is a 16th-century image of the child Jesus that the great explorer Ferdinand Magellan brought with him during his voyage in an attempt to circumnavigate the world.

Upon arriving at the islands particularly in Cebu, the natives were baptized as christians and the wife of the local chieftain was given the image.

Magellan was eventually killed in a conflict with Lapu-Lapu of nearby Mactan Island. The image remained with the natives while the Spaniards completed the voyage back to Spain and made a report of the islands and Magellan’s demise.

The king of Spain eventually sent successive expeditions to the islands this time with the aim of colonizing it. Various expeditions were sent but only that of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Augustinian Friar Andres de Urdaneta succeeded.

Upon reaching Cebu, at the very same settlement that Magellan encountered decades earlier, Legazpi ordered his men to raze the houses to the ground while the natives fled to the interior of the island.

In one of the houses that was spared, a soldier of Legaspi, Juan Camus, found a box and inside it was an unscathed image of a child that had Christian/European features. It was identified as an image similar to those made in Flanders — a geographical area that is now composed of parts of present day Belgium, The Netherlands and France.

Legazpi concluded that this must be the same image that Magellan brought with him, as witnessed by Antonio Pigafetta, during his voyage in 1521. Pigafetta, the chronicler of the Magellan expedition, also wrote how the image was given to the wife of the local chieftain of the settlement after being baptized by Father Pedro Valderrama.

The image was brought to a provisional church of the Augustians while a permanent church, which was elevated to the rank of a basilica minore in 1965, was being built purportedly at the very same site where the image was found.

The image was found on April 28, 1565, the feast day of St. Vitalis, to whom the cathedral, located a block away from the basilica, is dedicated.

Today, the image of the Sto. Niño de Cebu, standing at 11 inches tall minus the base, is still under the care of the Augustinian friars in Cebu. It is permanently housed at a marble chapel at the left side of the church. Hundreds to thousands of devotees visit the shrine every year to ask for various favors.

Viva Pit Señor!

Below: The original image of the Sto. Niño de Cebu, currently enshrined at a chapel at the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu. (Photo credits: Trizer Dale Mansueto)