Six million pilgrims from all over the world celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Peñafrancia on the third Saturday of September in Naga City.   They renew ties, share food, drinks and prayers with relatives and partidarios to pay her homage for favors received.  The Penafrancia fiesta which started in 1885, starts with the translacion of the miraculous icon whom the Bicolanos fondly call “Ina” from her Basilica at Balatas, three miles east of Naga Cathedral with devotees shouting “Viva la Virgen” to high heavens.  The colorful pagoda of the Bicol matriarch is borne on the rugged, muscular shoulders of barefooted voyadores who form a human barricade to protect the Virgin from the unruly crowd.  For whatever reason, the Bicolano will swear that the presence of a woman aboard the pagoda will surely spell disaster and past events and experiences support their claim. This is followed by nine days of novena at the cathedral with singing of Resuene Vivrante to the venerable image, a copy of the Madonna in Peñafrancia , Spain .  The image is returned to her Basilica on the feast day via a colorful evening fluvial procession on the Bicol River amongst triumphant sounding shouts of Viva la Virgen and lit-candle carrying escorts in boats.  On land devotees line the river banks with lit- candles, kneeling on the ground and bowing their heads in prayer as the torbulent procession plows in front of them through the rain-filled river of downtown Naga City .  The Virgin is received with formal religious rites at the Basilica.  Millions cap the Penafrancia Fiesta by attending the misa cantada on the Sunday after.

The Penafrancia statue of Nueva Caceres (the old name of Naga City ), was enshrined by Padre Miguel Robles de Covarrubias in 1712 as a closure for getting well from a serious illness when he was a seminarian at the Universidad de Santo Tomas.  The story goes that he and the Covarrubias clan who are natives of San Martin de Castanar, Penafrancia, Salamanca , Spain , prayed to their homeland advocate whose picture he was clutching to his breast for his recovery and to spare his life. He also made a vow that if cured from his lingering illness, he would gratuitously construct a chapel by the bank of Pasig river in Manila .  His assignment to Nueva Caceres made him fulfill his promise on the banks of Bicol River .