MARCH 16, 2006: Living in Laguna, I had to get up at 4 AM so I can make it to the rendezvous time of 7:30 at Jollibee in Philcoa, Quezon City.

Three psychologists and myself, all volunteer trauma counselors for survivors of calamities, agreed to provide debriefing services to a group of urban poor women who have survived the Wowowee stampede last February 4.

Josephine and Sandy teaches Psychology at Ateneo, Lala is a counselor for priests and nuns. And I’m just a concerned citizen. We were all veterans of the 2004 Infanta flood disaster, part of Oplan Damhin Kapwa, a group of about 20 volunteers pooled together by the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute, Mediators Network for Sustainable Peace, and renowned psychologist Honey Carandang to respond to the Infanta tragedy.

We were about to meet very courageous and strong women who have undergone a core-shattering experience. They were eight urban poor women in their late 40s to 50s. Three were married, the rest either widowed or separated, all jobless, and still saddled with responsibilities such as children and grandchildren in school, or grown children who were unemployed and sick.

They went to the ULTRA in Pasig that fateful day in February to watch the first-year anniversary show of Wowowee, a popular noontime show featuring no-brainer games and musical numbers, lured either by the prospect of instant cash and prizes, or by the chance to see famous celebrities.

Their individual stories are at times harrowing, at times uplifting. In brief, here are the four women in our group’s collective story:

Fely, 54, a widow with four children who survives only with the support of her oldest daughter, went there for the chance to see celebrities.

Gilda, 50, has three children, the oldest of whom was only 15. Her husband works at construction sites. She had lined up at the Ultra with her sister-in-law and some friends (among them Alma and Marsing) on the night of February 3. She was hoping to get a winning raffle ticket.

Marsing, 51, has five children. Her husband is a carpenter. She had thrice lined up at the ABS-CBN studios previously, but so far had not been lucky enough to have her number drawn. She was hoping this was her lucky day.

Alma was not an avid watcher of Wowowee and prefers Eat Bulaga, but she saw the prizes to be given away and heard that Gilda, Marsing, and other people from her neighborhood in Caloocan were going to see the show live. She decided that the chance to win P10,000 was a good enough reason.

Before the show could start that day, 71 people died in a mad scramble for the gates that would admit only 9,000 out of the almost 20,000 that had lined up days in advance.

Some of them arrived on the night of February 3, others at dawn of February 4. At first, they were all very excited and happy about the prospect of being able to get into the ULTRA gates.

OVERWHELMING STENCH

By dawn of Saturday, February 4, the crowd was getting thicker every hour. They were just standing there upright, with no space that allows one to leave the line, nor to move forward. It was a human trap they found themselves in.
The stench was overwhelming.

When people have lined up for days, in the sweltering, almost-summer heat, without a chance to take a bath, without a way to get out of the line, how do they stem in their bodily fluids? The obvious answer is: they did everything right there at the line. Those who brought babies in diapers were a bit better off than the others. At least the babies had Pampers.

At 2 AM, an ambulance had rushed a woman in the line to the hospital. She had gone into labor.

At 6 AM, somebody announced that tickets will be handed out, but due to the exceedingly large number of people, those outside the gates should just go home since they have no hope of getting a ticket.

People could not believe their ears. Many of them were just hoping to get a raffle ticket, even if they would not be able to get in. Wowowee host Willie Revillame had previously announced that raffle draws would also be done outside the gates of Ultra, so people who had lined up and won’t be able to get in will also get a chance to win – as long as they get raffle tickets. And now they are being told to go home?

Faced with a grim prospect, people started moving forward. The males in the line started to muscle their way in. Gilda saw guys climbing the gates.

At the crush of the people around her, she felt her body being pressed excruciatingly, “parang mayuyupi ang aking katawan.” She could hardly breathe. When she could no longer stand it, she told two men beside her that she wants to get out of the line. The two men helped pull her out.

There were pushing and shouting and pushing. Alma, a widow with five children and taking care of two grandchildren, was with her friend Maria and two other neighbors. When the pushing began, she cried, “Maria, di ko na kaya…lalabas na ako.”

But there was no way to leave the line. When she realized the dangerous situation, she uttered a prayer, “Naku Lord, tulungan mo naman akong makalabas.”

PANDEMONIUM

Suddenly, there was pandemonium.

Those at the back continued to press forward, mindlessly trampling on those caught in the wild stampede. The gates broke down: one of the metal railings toppled over, pinning people down. Those pinned down were further trampled on by the human tide that rushed through the gates. Women who fell with their backs down were so helpless that their sensitive body parts were mindlessly walked over in the mad rush.

People were shouting, “There are people dying here!” But the noise was too loud. People standing on a higher platform pulled out children and women from the line in an attempt to rescue them from a maddening crowd.

Many survived, but 71 did not.

WILL POWER

Alma was pressed forward by the tide.

By some miracle or sheer will power, she held on to the arms of a man who was standing on a higher platform. With a mighty heave, she was able to get out of the line, separated from her friend Maria.

She waited well into the afternoon for news about her friend Maria. At home, people were frantic. Where was she? What happened to her? Why has she not called?
For Alma, calling home did not even enter her mind as she stared dazed and confused at the disaster around her. She was thinking about the people she came with. Were they among those who were hurt and rushed to the hospitals? She went back to the site where they lined up over and over again. It was 4 PM when she decided to go home.

LATECOMER

Fely arrived well after 6 AM and thus was not at the line closer to the gates. Police had by then blocked the lines and people were no longer allowed to get closer to the entrance. Somebody told her to go home, that people have died lining up to get in. She did not know whether to believe them or not. She hung around for some time, but got bored and left home. She later watched the news on TV and saw that people had, indeed, died lining up.

SAVED BY THE GATE

Marsing had been separated from Alma and Gilda.

A veteran of queuing up for various live TV shows, she was used to the sight of people jostling for space in a line . At the Ultra, she got as close to a meter away from the entrance gate. She survived by holding on to a railing post for dear life, severely grazing both her arms. A month later, the bruises from the ordeal still remain.

Moments after the pandemonium, she went around Ultra looking for her companions. She was able to get inside the stadium, passing through the dead bodies, and went walking around the stands hoping to see her friends seated.

When she could not find them inside, she walked through the dead once more, peering at their clothes, looking for recognizable features. She did not recognize any of them. Asked how she felt while she was doing this, she responded “Parang wala lang sa akin.” She saw one woman being administered with CPR and taken away in an ambulance. By 11 AM she gave up her search and went home.

Upon reaching home, they were greeted by crying family members.

They converged with neighbors and friends who kept asking them to narrate their ordeal. Some of them, like Alma and Marsing, were chided by family members for going to the Ultra.

Marsing cracked a joke: “Ang masamang damo, di namamatay”. They all had aching bodies, “parang binugbog.”

It will take several days before their bodies heal completely. But the psychological scars remain.

Alma began experiencing migraines after the tragedy. The four still watch Wowowee on TV (it has began airing again after a brief suspension), but watching it brings back memories of the tragedy.

BITTER
How are they now?

Almost all of the women are bitter, blaming either the organizers or the police or Willie Revillame or the local government for not doing enough to secure the safety of the people.

They are disillusioned and less trusting. Asked if they will line up again to the show, all but one said they will no longer do so.

When Lala and Jo and I were later debriefing ourselves, I learned that their group’s stories were much more harrowing. Almost all of the four women in their group experienced being trampled on, nearly crushed to death and, by sheer will power, came out of it alive.

One of the women in Lala’s group had previously won Php90,000 in Wowowee, only to lose the money in a fire that burned down her house. She kept going back in the hope of winning again, so she could get the medical treatment for her two children with a heart condition and a serious lung disease.

What is the task of the debriefers?

Our task was to facilitate community healing that would hopefully plant the seeds of hope and recovery so their lives could go on.

We facilitated a breathing exercise that allowed them to relax and to recall the events of the tragedy in a non-threatening and safe environment. We emphasized that symptoms and unusual behavior right after the tragedy are normal reactions to an abnormal situation.

After the women had told their individual stories, we extracted their collective strengths and highlighted positive coping strategies. Towards the end, we facilitated a community healing ritual, asking them to look for objects in their environment that symbolized their learning from the tragedy.

Who can be a debriefer?

Anybody who has the inclination to listen to people’s stories, who firmly believes in the power of the human mind to heal itself, who has the good health to absorb possibly negative energies from stories of tragedies and emerge still whole.

Time and again, stories of survivors of calamities such as the eight women we just met have taught us many things, not least of which is the power of the human spirit, the will to survive, the strength of the human soul.