After papal Mass, Luneta Park awash with trash

Scavengers are having a field day in Luneta.

Buboy Sta. Maria, 6 years old, was busy helping his mother strapping sacks filled with used and emptied plastic bottles onto an old stroller.

"Pangkain lang po," Buboy timidly responded when asked why he was collecting garbage, as his mother Erlinda went for a nearby trash can and dug deep into the refuse for more bottles.

Erlinda said they plan to sell the garbage at a junk shop in Paco, Manila at P18 per kilo. So far, they've managed to come up with just a few sacks.

"Pero marami pa pong sako (na puno ng basura) doon sa likod na nakolekta namin," said the smiling mom of six children.

And the mother-son tandem was not alone.


Throughout the stretch of the Luneta Park, other scavengers could be seen minding their own business of collecting garbage.

Erlinda said she and her son had been picking up garbage all day, ever since hordes upon hordes of devotees started pouring in to Luneta for Pope Francis' last Mass in his Philippine visit.

When asked if she still managed to whisper her wish during the Pontiff's Mass or while he was making the rounds in Luneta for the flock of devotees, Erlinda said: "Naku, hindi na po. Busy ako nangongolekta ng basura."
 

She added: "Napanuod namin namin si Pope pero hindi na din talaga ako nakapag-dasal."
 

Just a few meters from Erlinda and Buboy was a covered "kubol" where piles of undistributed liturgy booklets were left scattered.

"Sayang! Ang dami pa naman niyan," said Gemma Perez, a volunteer for the papal event.

She said 3 million missalettes were printed for Sunday's Mass, scattered all over the historic park in groups of 100,000 pieces per kubol. There were 20 kubols in total, she added.

Juliet Blancaflor, who travelled from Bicol with her children just to see the Pope and happened to pass by the kubol, said she was taking some of the missalette piles to bring home for her family and neighbors.

She said that just a while ago, an Australian photojournalist was taking pictures of the piles, saying they made for an interesting photograph for his publication.

Even near the famed Jose Rizal monument, piles of waste and bundles of garbage bags were waiting to be picked up by the city government's garbage trucks.

Earlier in the day, authorities and organizers of the papal event appealed to pilgrims to clean as they went and to avoid throwing trash.

While many of the faithful left the papal Mass with their consciences a little cleaner, the same cannot be said for the grounds where an estimated 6 million people went to hear the pope who, earlier in the day, talked about caring for the environment.  — JDS, GMA News