When Covarrubias was ordained priest, he returned to Nueva Caceres and was appointed Provisor and Vicar General of the Bishopric of Nueva Caceres. In gratitude may be for his good fortune with the Lady of Peñafrancia and at the same time, since he was then an official of the diocesan Chancery of Nueva Caceres, Cubarruvias promoted and propagated the devotion to our Lady of Peñafrancia, himself becoming involved personally in the celebrations. His efforts and those priests after him paid off for the yearly traditional feast day of the Lady of Peñafarancia observed during the third Saturday and Sunday of September, galvanized the collective piety of the Bicolanos into one united annual celebration which was highlighted by a water or fluvial procession in which the Image of Our Lady.n was carried by various groups of able-bodied men around the circuitous streets of Naga City, and then along the major route of Naga River, back to her shrine.
The Bicolanos, the lofty forebears of the Ivatans, were observed and recorded through the centuries of the Spanish period to have become one of the most devoted and pious Filipinos among its numerous regions. The evangelization of the provinces seemed perfectly matched with the number of conversions to the Catholic fold, for statistics at the turn of the twentieth century showed the Bicolanos' total profession of the Catholic Faith. In Catanduanes, the gem pure-province at the tip of the Bicol peninsula registered an almost 99% Catholic population as recent as the 1980's.
Naga City which is located in the center of theses Bicol provinces rightfully became the seat of the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres, and therefore the focus and initiator of major and significant religious festivities in the region. From the simple example of Father Covarubias in yearly venerating the Lady of Peñafrancia with appropriate activities in the City, the September Peñafrancia Festivity evolved into a major religious event, which even the government's Department of Tourism has seen fit to be involved in.
