In northern Luzon, Philippines, more than 2,000 devotees gathered at dawn for a deeply symbolic ritual rooted in faith and history. Participants covered themselves in mud and dressed in dried banana leaves before walking through rice fields to a Catholic church to offer prayers for world peace.
The tradition commemorates a 1944 event during World War II, when Japanese troops were about to execute villagers, but a sudden rainstorm, seen as divine intervention by Saint John the Baptist, saved them.
Today, the ritual honors that legacy while echoing prayers for peace in war-torn regions like Ukraine and the Middle East.
