MANILA: Millions of Filipino Catholics joined an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in Manila on Thursday in one of the world’s largest displays of devotion.
Clad in maroon and yellow, devotees flooded the streets of the Philippine capital to swarm the Black Nazarene, the black wooden statue of Jesus Christ bearing down a cross, as people jostled for a chance to pull the thick rope towing the carriage across the city.
In Asia’s largest Christian-majority country, about 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million population identify as Catholic, a key legacy of Spanish colonization of the archipelago for more than 300 years.
The 6.5 km-long procession, known as…











