“Puno connection" haunts stampede investigation

Despite finding circumstances implicating it in last weekend’s stampede at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City, TV station ABS-CBN may get the kid-glove treatment from government after all. A fact-finding body of the Interior Department indicated this late Monday as it said it will merely pass on its findings to the Justice Department for further action. But Interior undersecretary Marius Corpuz also said the fact-finding team has drawn up a list of recommendations, highlighted by an integrated emergency plan for major events. “Dapat may integrated emergency plan, baka sakaling kung mangyari (There should have been an integrated emergency plan for such incidents)," Corpuz said in an interview with reporters. ABS-CBN was the organizer of last Saturday’s anniversary presentation of the noontime show “Wowowee," which turned tragic following an early-morning stampede for tickets. Some 74 persons, most of them women, were killed while more than 600 were injured in the incident, where people waited as early as Wednesday to get a shot at instant wealth. But when asked in a separate interview on radio on what charges the DILG will file based on its findings it was to submit to the DOJ Tuesday, Corpuz said, “We’ll leave it to the DOJ." Last weekend, Malacañang had named Ronaldo Puno as head of the DILG. Critics said Puno’s appointment was meant to fast-track Malacañang’s moves for Charter change. Puno’s brother Ricardo Jr. is ABS-CBN’s vice president for news and current affairs. Another Puno, Regis, is ABS-CBN’s lawyer in the stampede case. Regis has already inhibited himself from the stampede case because of his relationship with Ricardo and Ronaldo. In separate interviews on several radio stations, Corpuz said their investigation showed the stampede started after an event organizer whom he identified as Mel announced early Saturday that only 300 will be given tickets for the show’s raffle. Corpuz said this infuriated many of the would-be contestants, who had endured hunger and fatigue outside the arena, some of them since Wednesday night. “Nag-trigger ng unahan. Kung konti lang papapasukin, mag-uunahan na yan, kaya na-overcome ang steel railings (It triggered a mad dash inside. Many thought that if not all would be allowed to participate, then they should be first)," he said. Corpuz said a second flaw of ABS-CBN was that when its event organizers applied for a mayor’s permit, it asked for police presence not for crowd control but for preventing petty crime. “Ang sulat ang PNP presence mainly to prevent occurrence of crimes, holdup, dukot, bugbog, peace and order maintenance. Sa crowd control di nagkaroon ng consultation (It asked for police presence to prevent holdups and snatching; for peace and order. There was no consultation on crowd control)," he said. He said a third was the lack of a contingency plan and the lack of open communication lines with police, firefighters and hospitals. “Kung nagkagulo mangyayari diyan panic (So when something like this broke out, there was panic)," he said. Corpuz said that if a contingency plan had been in place, last weekend’s tragedy could at least have been less severe, if not fully avoided. A second recommendation, he said was to have a “leader" on the ground to direct contingency operations should something untoward happen. “We could not have totally prevented, from the looks of it mangyayari talaga but kung ready, may action, it would go into operation once the event starts to occur, mas maagapan (From the looks of it, it was bound to happen. But if the people on the ground were ready, they could have lessened the impact of what happened had they responded quickly)," he said. -GMANEWS.TV