MANILA, Philippines – Crowd volume at the Manila North Cemetery on Friday night, All Saints’ Day, appears to be still high even amid rainfall as the Manila Police District (MPD) estimates that around 200,000 are still inside.
However, Sta. Cruz Police Station Commander Lt. Col. Reynaldo Magdaluyo said that this is significantly lower than the numbers recorded in the afternoon when the crowd peaked at 560,000 at one point.
“Since this morning, 900,000 individuals have entered the Manila North Cemetery,” Magdaluyo told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview.
“There are still a lot of people inside the cemetery but it has subsided over time,” he added.
MPD earlier said that they have confiscated several contrabands, with 83 bladed weapons or pointed objects, 3,410 flammable items, 785 packs of cigarettes, 10 paints, two gardening tools, and 11 liquor — not including the bottles of beers and brandy seized from a man inside the said cemetery.
Magdaluyo said that the suspect was booked and detained at the Blumentritt Police Community Precinct.
The officer also said that he believes the man did not bring the liquor ahead of the security preparations as the latter claims. Magdaluyo said that the suspect may have brought it over a stretch inside the cemetery which was cleared by the city local government.
“Filipinos are ingenious, we already told them that they should not bring those things but they still find a way. Maybe they brought in the alcoholic drinks through a portion that was cleared by the city government,” he explained.
“The area that we cleared is quite long, about one kilometer, so they may have passed it through that,” he added.
He also admitted that there may be other incidents where visitors sneaked in contrabands like alcoholic drinks, especially since the beverages were only discovered accidentally.
Despite the incident and another case where illegal vendors were arrested inside the burial ground, police said that the situation at the Manila North Cemetery is generally peaceful.
“People were even happy about the flow this year, it is such a big improvement compared to the previous years,” Magdaluyo added.