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(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Byline: Romulo Ponte, Pakil, Laguna
MELINDA de Luna, a resident of San Pablo City who works as a bank employee in Santa Rosa town, was still childless at 32. Her doctor had expressed pessimism about her having a safe pregnancy after tumors were found in her womb.
De Luna and her diabetic husband had long been hoping and praying to have a child. The woman had even gone to novenas in Dolores town in Quezon, to Bishop Alfredo Obviar in Tayabas, Quezon before he died, and to several other places known for bestowing graces and miraculous cure.
One day in April, a childhood friend and classmate, Aileen Fernandez Enriquez, 38, invited De Luna to join her in the street dances and prayerful chants of the Turumba Festival in Pakil, Laguna. Weeks later, De Luna noticed changes in her body.
She gave birth to a boy and all her tumors were removed without complications. Her son, JD, will be 3 years old on June 2.
De Luna's story is among those of hundreds of devotees who come out yearly for the seven-day Turumba Festival, also known as the "Seven Lupi" or Fiesta of the Blessed Virgin of Turumba, which commemorates the seven sorrows or seven wounds that pierced the heart of Mary.