Crowds throng as Jesus statue parades through Philippine capital [Video]

Scores of thousands of Catholic pilgrims swarmed the streets of Manila in search of a miracle Thursday, straining to reach a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in an annual display of religious fervour.

The procession to the Philippine capital’s Quiapo Church, which started before dawn after an open-air mass, was expected to swell to more than two million participants from across the heavily Catholic country, church officials said.

Barefoot men and women clad in maroon shirts — the colour of the robe that covers the black, wooden Jesus of Nazarene statue — scrambled to grab the rope used to draw the life-sized religious icon, believing it would bring good health.

“I prayed that my mother be healed from her heart attack,” Dong Lapira, 54, told AFP of a previous procession where he had been bruised and jostled in his attempt to join those pulling the rope.

But he vowed to …