Kapampangans' devotion to their Virgen de los Remedios is beautiful and unique because instead of devotees going on pilgrimages to her shrine, it is she who leaves her shrine to go to the people.
The devotion was started by Pampanga's first bishop, Cesar Ma. Guerrero after observing that "aqui en Pampanga, hay mucha piedad, pero poca caridad!" (here in Pampanga, there is much piety, but little charity!) In Kapampangan: "keti Pampanga, deng tau mapangadi la, pero maimut la!"
He was also concerned about the Communist insurgency and peasant unrest, which resulted in numerous incidents of burning of plantations, assassinations of landowners and bloody military campaigns. Pampanga at the time was known as "Little Russia."
Bishop Guerrero initiated the Cruzada ning Pamanisi at Lugud (Crusade of Penance and Charity) where an image of the Virgin Mary would go around Pampanga to inspire Kapampangans, especially those in the hotbeds of insurgency, to mend their ways and donate to the poor (lamac).
Bishop Guerrero chose the image of Virgen de los Remedios, having once served as parish priest of Malate whose patron saint is the same Virgen de los Remedios. He borrowed an existing similar image from Baliti, an old parish within San Fernando, for the Cruzada processions around the province, starting in 1952. The first town visited by the Virgen was Masantol.
After several months of continuous processions around the province, the image finally returned to Baliti, and the parishioners decided not to lend it anymore for the next round of processions.
So Bishop Guerrero had another image of Virgen de los Remedios made, in 1953, which became the processional image that was canonically crowned three years later, on Sept. 8, 1956. More than 75,000 Kapampangans witnessed the event presided by the papal nuncio Msgr. Egidio Vagnozzi.
After that event the devotion to Virgen de los Remedios became more intense, and more towns and barrios demanded to host the image. This prolonged the period before the image could return to the same place (sometimes as long as 10 years).
And so in 1978, Archbishop Oscar Cruz had two identical images made to quicken the pace of the Virgen's provincial rounds, one image for the southern towns and the other for the northern towns, with the canonically crowned image staying in the Chancery (archbishop's residence) and coming out only every Sept. 8 for the reenactment of the coronation, which is alternately hosted by the two most populous cities, Angeles and San Fernando.
Meanwhile, the original Virgen de los Remedios in Baliti continues to be venerated by local parishioners, while its replacement image remains in the chapel of the Chancery waiting for its annual big day. It is the two identical copies of this replacement image that tirelessly brave the mountains and the rivers and the floods all over Pampanga to go to all Kapampangans, instead of the Kapampangans going to her.