Angeles City celebrates not one, not two, not three but four fiestas every year—Oct. 2, feast of its titular patron saint (Holy Guardian Angels); then second Sunday of October, Piyestang Balen or feast of its actual patron saint, Our Lady of the Rosary; then last Friday of October, Piyestang Apu or feast of Apung Mamacalulu; and lastly Dec. 8, the founding anniversary of Angeles as a town.
In 1796, a former town mayor of San Fernando, Don Angel Pantaleon de Miranda, retired to the northernmost barrio of San Fernando called Kuliat where he and wife Rosalia cleared the forest and established a hacienda. He invited wealthy families in San Fernando to join him there—Lazatin, Henson, Abad Santos, Ocampo, Dayrit and De Jesus families. Remember that these families had originated in Bacolor and Mexico towns and had only relocated to San Fernando when San Fernando became a town in 1754. Now the same families were being invited to move again, this time to Kuliat.
On Dec. 8, 1829, barrio Kuliat officially separated from San Fernando and became a new town—that’s Fiesta Number One. It was named after its founder, Don Angel, but custom dictated that new settlements be officially named after saints who were the founders’ namesakes, thus pluralized to Angeles because the Catholic calendar only has Los Angeles Custodios (the Guardian Angels) whose feast day is Oct. 2–that’s Fiesta Number Two! (Eventually the townsfolk created a singular nomenclature, San Angelo, which is not in the Catholic calendar, and used it to name a street, a subdivision and a school, Holy Angel, which is San Angelo in English.)
Although the Guardian Angels are the titular patron saint of Angeles, the new parish chose Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (Nuestra Señora del Santissimo Rosario) as its patron saint, maybe because Our Lady is a higher and more powerful intercessor to God than His angels, or maybe it’s a subtle reference to the name of founder’s wife Rosalia, whose personal patron saint was said to be Our Lady of the Rosary, whose feast day is October 13–that’s Fiesta Number Three! In practice, the townsfolk celebrate this fiesta every second Sunday of October, which is usually the Sunday closest to Oct. 13, and the Marian image they chose happened to be the same image as Our Lady of La Naval, the miraculous Marian icon that led the Spaniards (assisted by Kapampangan soldiers) to a naval victory against the invading Dutch in 1646.
Meanwhile, another image on the side altar of the same parish church started gaining more devotees than the Marian image enthroned on the main altar. This was the Santo Entierro (Interred Christ), better known as Apung Mamacalulu (Merciful Lord). Its popularity started in 1897 after a local, Roman Payumo, attributed his escape from Guardia Civil to the miraculous intervention of Apung Mamacalulu. In 1928, however, an unfortunate incident led to the hijacking of the image during a Good Friday procession which led to a Supreme Court lawsuit which led to a duplicate image at a private chapel in Brgy. Lourdes Sur. It created an awkward situation where the duplicate image attracted more devotees than the original image but eventually the whole fiasco came to a happy resolution. The pilgrimages continue to this day, climaxing every last Friday of October—that’s Fiesta Number Four!