Believers see ‘sad image of Christ’ on rock

15 February 2007
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon

GUINOBATAN, ALBAY—A boulder bearing what believers claim is a “sad image of Jesus Christ” is drawing the young and old alike to a village here.

Villagers last week found the rock in Barangay Maipon, which lost more than 200 people to torrents of sand and boulders loosened from the slopes of Mt. Mayon when Supertyphoon “Reming” hit the province on Nov. 29.

Reming left more than 1,200 people dead or missing in Albay.

Elen Isip, 44, a resident of the village, said the boulder carried a timely message.

“Many of us have forgotten Him and only remember Him when a calamity comes. We seldom pray or thank Him for His everyday blessings. Many also indulge in too many vices,” Isip said in the vernacular.

Bowing before image

The large rock is facing Mt. Mayon.

People come to see the rock in the morning and at dusk when the golden rays of the sun highlight the features of the boulder, she said.

On Monday morning, media workers and some 200 people came to the village to take a look at the large rock.

Isip said she saw some people bowing before the image.

People’s penchant for seeing faces everywhere they look—in the moon, Rorschach inkblots, clouds, interference patterns from oil spills, potato chips or cinnamon buns—are hardwired in the brain, according to scientists. (See story on this page.)

Biggest object

Neuroscientists quoted by the International Herald Tribune said a particular area of the brain gave faces priority.

Herminia Obenita, 38, said the boulder was the biggest object one would see in at the lahar-covered site.

She wondered how the flood carried it from the slopes of Mayon to where it is now.

Obenita said some of the displaced Maipon residents who had heard the news about the image would come from the Travesia Elementary School, where they are temporarily housed in tents, to see if it was true.

Few people were left in Maipon when the Inquirer visited the site Tuesday.

One could see mostly dry sand and rocks, newly created river channels, and abandoned homes.

There were workers reconnecting big rubber pipes as they were rebuilding the water system that distributed drinking water to the municipality.

Once in a while, displaced villagers go back to Maipon to dig up their belongings, according to Obenita.

Last Sunday, a man, by chance, dug out the decomposed body of a 5-year-old boy, who was identified by his grandmother by the shirt he wore.