12-year-old boy makes own tableaux display for ‘palibot’

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Ilocandia has the practice of palibot where religious statues are paraded during Good Friday around the plaza with the faithful joining the procession.

But with the COVID-19 crisis upon us, almost all of the public religious activities during the Holy Week  have been banned. Most have had their religious masses broadcast on the TV and to internet audiences. 

But creativity cannot be restrained even by the coronavirus. 

A 12-year-old Grade VI student in Bangued, Abra created a set of small religious tableaux for his own “palibot.”

“The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness,” said John Maeson Morales Navarro, a student from the Agtangao Elementary School in Bangued.

“The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver,” he added.

Using modeling clay, recycled clothes and fairy lights, he crafted by himself the statues including the Santo Entierro, the Crucified Christ, Saint Joseph, Virgin Mary and the apostles and displayed them at their barangay in Agtangao.

Navarro was a finalist of a poster-making contest at University of the Philippines this March. – Rappler.com