Tragedie at Wowowee
| “An estimated 30,000 of people had gone to the stadium to watch the anniversary presentation of Wowowee, a popular TV gameshow in the Philippines.
The crowd, all trying to get into the 13,000-seat stadium, most of which waited in line for days, tried their luck to get a chance to win 1m peso ($19,250), which was said to be given to each of 2 lucky winners. |
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The stampede, considered the worst in the country so far, broke out as fans rushed toward the gates of the Philsports Arena (formerly ULTRA), at close to 7 a.m. which resulted to 88 deaths and 350 injured.” |
I came home at around 6:30 am and went to sleep. I heard of the news soon as I woke up, and news said that 70 people died. The toll rose per hour, and as of the latest news, there are 88 deaths and 350 injured.
Tragedies like these bring emotional uproar from all over. There is even a Forum asking What went wrong? But who is to be blamed? Some people blame:
the undisciplined crowd,
“The people from behind, not the people in front, kept on pushing and shoving the people in front of them. Eventually this gate gave way. That’s when the people right in front of the crowd stumbled, and then they piled up.” - Rene Luspo, spokesman for the network
The shoving started when someone from the crowd shouted that the show’s staff were distributing free tickets that give the holders a chance to win a house and lot, a taxi, a passenger jeepney, or P10,000. And denied that the mayhem erupted when someone shouted “May bomba! (There’s a bomb!).” - Raul Medina, Police Superintendent
the organizers,
“If you predict that there’s going to be a huge crowd, you should be ready with ambulances and communications, you should plan for the worst. We have a lot of people who wanted to help but could not get in immediately.” - AP quotes Gordon.
“For a huge organization such as ABS-CBN not to have anticipated such a tragety is gross negligience. What do we learn from these tragedies? absolutely nothing. When everything fails, we blame the Filipino mentality instead of the real culprits, who were the producers, directors, and staff of the program. Those people were there because of their promotions. They were there because they were anticipating some rewards as advertized. Now the tragedy strikes, it is now the victims’ fault.” - malafunkshun
even the host, Willie Revillame,
“I really do not know if their purpose is to help people, but I have seen this guy have a nasty streak. He seems to trivialize the pain of people for the sake of a few laughs. Case in point, in one of his shows, a young child passed gas and rather than calm an already nervous child, he would make fun of him to the point of making him cry. To add insult to injury, he bribes him and makes him dance like a trained monkey for a few measely pennies. That is complete arrogance at its worst.” - viewer named Pepe
But should we start pointing on our fingers now?
It’s sad to know that instead of going out into the world, find a job, and work hard, a lot of our brothers and sisters are just relying on shows like this to help them. When will we change this attitude that we have? Helping others is good but we should not just give, but teach people the value of hard work.
And it’s sad to know how some people take advantage of the weaknesses of others, to have personal gain. And some people just do not care about anything else other than themselves.
Indeed, we should learn from this tragedy. Whether there is someone to blame or not, the question now is.. are we really gonna learn from this?
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credits:
*Pictures | BBC News | CNN News
*Wowowee: what went wrong? |ABS-CBN
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