Pope Francis celebrates a Canonization mass for Eufrasia Eluvathingal, Amato Ronconi, Antonio Farina, Kuriakose Elias Chavara, Nicola Saggio da Longobardi and Amato Ronconi in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2014. AP
MANILA, Philippines—While church and government authorities are preoccupied with how best to secure Pope Francis when he comes to the Philippines in January, the Holy Father himself is more concerned about the safety of the people wanting to see him, according to an official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. earlier said that 95 percent of the government’s preparations for the papal visit involved security.
“I think the greater concern is not the so-called offensive security, but security and peace and order,” CBCP president Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen and Dagupan said in an interview.
“We might get too excited, too thrilled that we tend to forget safety procedures. We might forget that there are also people who are [physically] weak waiting for the Pope. They might get trampled on, the children might get hurt,” he said.
“The Pope is more concerned not so much for his own security but the welfare of those who want to see him. He’s actually not thinking about himself,” the prelate added.
Villegas said the CBCP has not received any information about any threat to Pope Francis, who will be in the Philippines from Jan. 15 to 19, 2015, primarily to visit the survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda, which devastated the Visayas in November last year. He is scheduled to fly on Jan. 17 to Tacloban, which bore the brunt of the cyclone, internationally known as “Haiyan.”
President Aquino said in September that he expected stringent measures by the Presidential Security Group to protect Pope Francis during his visit to the Philippines in light of a news report in Italy of a possible threat against the Pontiff from Islamic militants.
The Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, Habeeb al-Sadr, had been quoted by the Italian newspaper La Nazione earlier as saying there was a “credible threat” from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) against the Pope.
Armed Forces chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang himself said earlier that said that while Islamists in the country sympathized with the ISIS, they do did not pose any threat to the Pope.
What Catapang saw as a bigger problem were the large crowds of people expected to throng around the Pope during his visit.
“The threat is the crowd; they may congregate on the small area where Pope is,” Catapang said. “People like him very much.”
Ambassador Marciano Paynor, a member of the papal visit central committee, said that one of the challenges facing the organizers would be the crowds.
The former Philippine ambassador to Israel, who helped arrange Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1995, has appealed to the public to avoid a “people surge” toward the Pontiff.
A special task force, “Papal Visit 2015,” led by Philippine National Police Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina will be in charge of security arrangements for the papal visit.
These include public safety assistance, police services for crowd control, vehicular and pedestrian traffic direction and routes, parking and venue security.
The PNP will also provide operational support to the Presidential Security Group, which is in charge of close-in security and safety services for Pope Francis and his entourage.
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