death day afternoon

if you don't know already, here's what happened today: instead of a bomb scare over in town (which happens to be the sole reason on why i'm not out with a certain someone when i should be), a stampede over in the ultra/philsports arena killed 73 people and injured 200+ more. the sad part is, it's because of wowowee's first anniversary. and you all know how i am with wowowee.

as stampedes go, they are bound to leave people bloodied, bruised, and ultimately dead. just ask mufasa. my stand on this issue is that papi or abs-cbn is not to be majorly blamed for it. it was not their fault that this happened, though i will not deny that such a popular noontime show that draws a lot of people (and also on its very first anniversary) will cause some sort of chaos.

the real fault goes to the audience itself. demographics show that there are more "unprivileged" people than "privileged" in the audience. since the show is tailor-made for the "unprivileged" rabble, stakes are high and the prizes are to die for. (okay, bad pun.) these same people were disorderly - push ultimately came to shove, and i heard that someone shouted "bomba", which aggravated the issue and started the stampede.

now if there were more "privileged" people in the audience, or if the audience were comprised of 100% "privileged people", i doubt that something like this wouldn't have happened. yes, i'm implying what i am implying - "privileged" people are more, shall we say, "civilized". now, i'm not drawing heat - everyone was pushing and shoving just to get in the arena.

the irony of potential ironies might be that people will sue abs-cbn. they will sue abs-cbn and/or papi for organizing such a clogged event, while abs-cbn and/or papi was just trying to help out, and the people willfully went to the event anyway. now if they do actually sue abs-cbn, they're aiming their anger at the wrong people - they should be complaining to the management of the arena. the entertainment company was just using the place; abs-cbn is not to blame when the arena doesn't meet safety standards.

still, my point stands strong for all to see: it was [more of] the public's fault, they brought this on themselves, they could've been a lot more orderly. i will not deny, however, that none of them deserved to die.

condolences to the innocent deaths that occurred today.