350T attend INC anniversary fete

CEBU, Philippines - Unlike in the previous year when it was held at the Fuente Osmeña Rotunda, this year’s 99th founding anniversary activity of the Iglesia ni Cristo used a much bigger area at the South Road Properties to accommodate more members.

The religious program was scheduled from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. but people started to arrive at the venue as early as morning.

As of 5 p.m., Cebu City Police Office chief Sr. Supt. Mariano Natu-el Jr. yesterday estimated the crowd to have reached 350,000.

While the venue may have been away from downtown and uptown Cebu City, it still caused traffic congestion and left commuters stranded since a large number of public utility vehicles were rented to transport church members from different parts of the province.

Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board-7 Regional Director Ahmed Cuizon said their office issued special permits to vehicles hired by INC for the founding anniversary activity, dubbed an evangelical mission.  There were 245 vehicles issued with special permits comprised of 130 buses and 115 public utility jeepneys, Cuizon said.

A traffic rerouting scheme was designed by City Traffic Operations Management upon coordination of INC officials and the city government where as early as 9 a.m., roads leading to SRP were already closed to make way for the arrival of delegates from northern and southern Cebu.

In order to manage traffic flow, CITOM deployed over 50 personnel at the site.

“We augmented jaywalking and clamping personnel, which makes it more than 50,” CITOM executive director Rafael Christopher Yap said.

Ensuring peace and order at the religious activity were about 200 PNP personnel led by officials of Police Station 11 in Barangay Mambaling, Natu-el said.

As of 5 p.m., police had not recorded any untoward incident except for people fainting due to the heat and congestion.

Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak said not less than 10 people fainted. They were quickly attended to by the Barangay Pardo Emergency Response, the Inayawan Rescue Unit and the Labangon Rescue Unit.

He added that the city government took over crowd management at 1 p.m. after seeing that the INC standby security and safety personnel could not control crowd and vehicle movement.

A part of the baywalk reportedly collapsed causing minor injuries to some church members.

Vehicles from the north were also stranded inside the tunnel causing inconvenience to passengers while others decided to walk towards the venue to avoid suffocating.

Also, the SRP viaduct had stranded vehicles on standby for about three hours making Tumulak worried since the viaduct was not designed to hold parking vehicles.  Because of this, the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council assisted the CITOM manning the traffic flow.

For the benefit of stranded passengers since a number of PUJs were rented for the activity, CITOM also deployed 10 Kaohsiung buses.

INC was founded in July 27, 1914 by Felix Manalo who declared it an independent Christian religion. The current Executive Minister of INC is Eduardo Manalo, the grandson of the founder.  (FREEMAN)