Greed's Gate: Ultra Stampede

To the 30,000 people who squeezed in around the perimeter of Ultra (now Phil. Sports Arena), this steel gate was the gateway to money and prizes worth 2 Million Pesos. Little did they know that for 74 of them, this gate will be their portal to a crushing death.

The stench of a cooped-up and people-crowded place (think Quiapo underpass) was still in the air when I went to Ultra last Monday (February 6) to join a Mass offered for the victims. If you look closely at this photo above, you will see that some of the steel bars have been bent and twisted open by the rowdy throng that surged forward.

Predictably, the public is now pointing fingers as to who is responsible for the senseless carnage. Yes, the event organizers can be blamed for lack of foresight and planning. Yes, it is true that offering 300 tickets to a restless, starved 30,000 crowd is a red-enveloped invite for a stampede. Yes, the greedy members of the crowd who jostled and pushed are also to blame (a witness said there were several burly men at the back who pushed everyone forward). Poverty, and those who are not helping alleviate poverty, are to blame. Everyone, in short, who is not part of the solution, are to blame.

Some families of stampede victims are taken advantage of (milking the drama from them when they clearly need time to mourn without the press “pressing”) and some are the ones taking the advantage (one bereaved family member was heard asking for a metal coffin instead of a wooden coffin and another said they wanted an airplane fare back instead of a ferry).

What now of poverty? What now of senseless deaths? It is still there, hovering like a blunt axe ready to fall on a frail neck. Poverty breeds greed but we have a choice not to be greedy. We have a choice to lend a hand to those trampled upon or we can spend time damning and blaming whoever for however long we want. We have a choice to become the one proposing and doing solutions, or the one perpetually opposing solutions. We keep forgetting the power of our own choice. Fortunately, there are still people out there like 12-year-old Cristina Bugayong, a poor girl who returned P300,000 that a messenger dropped, who chose honesty over greed even if she needed the money. I wonder, how long did Cristina’s story lasted in media circulation compared to the exposure on the products of greed like the stampede and other crimes?