Dying to be rich
For those who were glued to their television sets yesterday, it was quite disturbing to see the dead people from the ULTRA stampede being piled up on the trucks… I was watching at 11 am and was puzzled how this could have happened. At that time, I saw this elderly woman, her face paper-white, with her arms outstretched while being transferred from a stretcher… without even being covered by a blanket..The idea was incomprehensible to me even if Im used to seeing people dying everyday in the hospital.
A friend texted me to say she was angry to see some of the Wowowee audience members still waving at the camera despite knowing that a tragic event had just occurred. Apparently, some of the audience members stayed on hoping that the program would continue while outside the crowd was composed of family members looking for the missing. I was pissed off to see one of the Viva Hot Babes say on camera that sayang they had practiced 5 days just for the opening production number of Wowowee and she continued to complain of the bruises she had sustained from dance practice. Hel-lo?!?! kung hindi ka ba naman insensitive, 74 people had just died and hundreds more injured from the stampede outside of your comfortable dressing room and all you can say is that you have bruises on your arms? ano ba yun?!?
if you read the editorial of anthropologist/sociologist Michael Tan in the front page of the Inquirer today, he made an interesting comment "How long will we allow the entertainment industry to use celebrities, with their manufactured aura, to dictate to us what to buy, how to live- how to die? Doubtless, heads will roll as authorities ferret out people to blame."
In my personal opinion, it would be wrong to blame the Wowowee staff or the ABS-CBN management for everything that happened yesterday.. It was an unforeseen event that could have happened anywhere because of the present economic crisis our country is facing. It is not the entertainment industry that is solely to blame for giving hopes to our countrymen.. They say that the program has been giving dole-outs… Maybe in a sense all they wanted was to help because they recognized that these people are really hard-up. And if you saw Willie Revillame and the other hosts of Wowowee, they looked like they were in a state of disbelief, still dazed from the incident.
The crowd estimate was around 50,000 and only 17,000 will be accomodated inside. Can you imagine that? Instead of saying, how much security officers did they need to secure ULTRA or if the promoters given the raffle tickets in advance, would this have been prevented? Maybe we failed to ask how many of the 50,000 people who lined up and travelled all the way from the various provinces, are unemployed? Most of those who died were elderly women who wanted to try to bring home even a small amount of money, or even just catch a glimpse of their favorite artistas. Michael Tan said that the dead were human sacrifices on the altar of consumerism and latter-day idols.. Perhaps he is right to some degree.. But I think that it must be out of sheer desperation to camp out outside of ULTRA for several days, in hopes of being able to be part of the program’s Pera o Bayong segment or to try your luck in winning the P2.5 million house and lot or the car they’re giving off in the raffle. Im sure you wont stay there for several days, wondering what your next meal is (probably instant noodles), with your belongings in one bag if you did not really need the money that badly.. It is a reflection of how a big part of the Philippine society has continued to be uneducated, unemployed and impoverished. On a personal note, our patients in PGH have to pay for every laboratory exam and meds, walang gamit sa ER for Surgery trauma patients and we have to run to the Pedia-ER just to get NSS (layman’s terms: dextrose) kasi out of stock so that the trauma patient wont suffer more blood loss and the bantays are surprised to find out that their money had just run out and we can’t do anything else for the patient.
Imagine nanunood lang ako ng television and this event got me thinking. Gio says i live in a perfect bubble.. at present, wala akong problema. I admit im even apathetic at times because in the hospital you have no contact with the outside world, kinda detached from reality.. kaya na-bother talaga ako to watch TV yesterday.. And for those who are wondering we are not stakeholders in ABS kaya i dont blame them.. personal opinion ko lang ito.. tell me what you think!
