The aftermath of last Sunday’s post Sinulog celebration merely confirmed the obvious as stated by Sinulog Foundation, Inc. executive director Ricky Ballesteros: more street parties mean more drunken people getting rowdy and falling asleep in the city streets.
Even without the SFI issuing permits to street parties along the Sinulog parade route, there were at least six more street parties one of which happened to be at the back of a department store located within the uptown area, where hundreds of thousands of revelers (of which 90,000 are said to be minors) converged to celebrate what is essentially a religious event meant to honor the Child Jesus.
Senior Supt. Marciano Batiancela, Jr., who headed the Sinulog security task group, was a bit more gracious in his assessment of the security and crowd control measures by saying that the crowd that converged at Maxilom or Mango Avenue wasn’t rowdy as reported by a lot of revelers. There were even those who were polite enough to greet police “Pit Senyor” and obeyed their instructions to keep the peace.
But as Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, who heads the City Disaster Risk Management Council, reported there were others who weren’t so accommodating. “Some revelers vandalized and damaged city ambulances,” he said.
While there were female partygoers who got rushed to a nearby hospital, one female reveler had to be placed on top of a vehicle after she fainted. Based on initial reports, it’s a wonder no one was molested or robbed during the revelry even if the venue was literally jampacked to overcapacity.
A resident in the area identified as Carlo Borromeo, who took photos of drunken youths in last year’s Sinulog, was beaten up in front of his wife and home by unidentified drunken men. Whether that was payback for posting his photos online has yet to be verified, though the beating he received is proof positive that things can get way out of hand in the heat of the celebration.
There’s plenty of blame to pass around, not least of whom are the organizers of these street parties which Batiancela said not only caused revelers to get rowdy but also contributed to traffic congestion since these were extended outside their premises.
Tumulak said there were establishments that set up their own security measures such as hiring bouncers to keep order. We wonder though if some of them, especially those along the carousel route, were disciplined enough not to sell liquor to customers outside of their premises especially minors who were vulnerable to being victimized by criminal elements.
The police also had to share a lot of the blame as revelers complained that they failed to remove a bus and a private vehicle in the middle of Mango Avenue, but the sheer size of the crowd only slowed down efforts to take them out of the way.
When all is said and done, those who took part in the celebration and drank themselves to excess cannot escape the onus of blame for being part of the problem even if they don’t remember being so in the first place.
City Hall would do well to heed Batiancela’s suggestions to regulate the sale of liquor and street parties only to accredited organizers. The barangay officials can do their part to keep order in their communities by enforcing the ban on unaccredited party organizers.
It’s time to instill some sanity and discipline in the post-Sinulog parties if only to protect those taking part in the celebration and avoiding any inconvenience on those who would rather celebrate it in the privacy of their own homes.