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Friday, February 10, 2006
Zosa: Tragedy on the hill
By Elbert M. Zosa
Biz Vantage
AROUND the corner from the gate of the subdivision where I live in Metro Manila is a road that slightly winds up a hill that hits an intersection. At the right hand side is the Philsports Arena (formerly Ultra).
As early as Thursday (Feb. 2) morning, a crowd, mostly of women and children, had gathered at the side of the road, at the upper part of the hill.
On Friday morning, the crowd had grown larger but cars could still pass through as the people stayed along the sides of the road. However, on Friday evening at around 7:45, as I came home from work, my car could hardly move in the area. Luckily, the police allowed traffic down the hill so I slowly got through dense traffic.
The crowd covered half the road, more than halfway down the hill. The people seemed to be in a good mood. I asked some guys who were in the middle of the road what was happening. They said they were there waiting for the next day’s Wowowee first anniversary program.
They hoped to win some of the prizes which were a million pesos, house and lot, a jeepney and numerous other prizes in cash and in kind. They said they were going to have a lot of fun during the show. I wished them good luck.
I slept late on Saturday morning. One of the first things I often do is turn on the TV to catch the latest news. But I did not follow my usual rituals. In the meantime, I could hear sirens in the distance.
Maybe it was because I had a head cold and felt tired that I wasn’t too curious about what was going on. I was shocked to learn later that 61 people had died. The count increased as the day wore on.
The reports said that 19,000 people had massed along the hill while 11,000 had gathered along the right intersection at the top of the hill.
Tonight, as I write this, I still feel numb from the tragedy. Partly, it’s because it never occurred to me that something so devastating would happen.
But on hindsight, I realized that more precautions should have been taken by everyone concerned, including the local authorities and the police. Stampedes have occurred in football games in other parts of the world and even in Haj activities.
Investigations are going on. There are a lot of good intentioned people involved while there are the usual publicity hounds and others with their political agenda. I shall not touch on these aspects.
Gabby Lopez did a commendable action in taking responsibility for ABS-CBN. I say this not because I knew the late Geny Lopez well as the chairman of the bank that I had worked for.
By coincidence, when Cebu Pacific’s plane crashed in Cagayan de Oro, Lance Gokongwei manfully assumed the most difficult role during the crisis. Lance had been an assistant treasurer of the same bank while his father John Gokongwei had been the executive committee chairman of the bank.
This tragedy is a grim reminder of the urgent tasks that our government and our society need to uplift a bigger portion of our people from poverty. There is much to be done.
(elzosa@yahoo.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 10, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here.
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