MANILA - Devotees participating in the Traslacion will be allowed to ride LRT-2 trains barefoot on Jan. 9, its management said Tuesday.

The "no inspection, no entry" policy will be implemented in all stations, it added.

"LRT-2 will accommodate barefooted devotees to ride the train in deference to the customary celebration of the Feast of the Black Nazarene on Wednesday, January 9, 2019,” the management told its 26,000 followers on Twitter.

Millions of Catholics risk life and limb every year to get near the 400-year-old image of the Black Nazarene, believed to have miraculous powers, as its weaves through the streets of the capital back to its home at Quiapo Church.

Enduring the procession barefoot is seen by some as "a test of faith," Maria Yohana Frias, an ethnology researcher at the National Museum of the Philippines, said in an Agence France-Presse report.

Last year, the Traslacion took 22 hours to return the ebony image of the cross-bearing Christ to Quiapo Church from Quirino Grandstand, covering a distance of some 6 kilometers.