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More than five million Filipinos attended Mass at a park,
with the Metro Manila Development Authority assigning adult
diapers to volunteers who could not leave their posts, in a
trial days before a visit by Pope Francis.
Emergency and police officials said they expect a much bigger
crowd when the leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics celebrates
Mass at the same venue on Jan. 18.
Authority chairman Francis Tolentino said only the volunteers at
Friday's Mass were required to wear the adult diapers.
"About 300 of them because they cannot leave their positions
otherwise people will come in and break the line," he said.
About 2,000 diapers were distributed to civilian auxiliaries on
traffic duty for the procession, but there was no data on how
many used them. In a radio interview, Tolentino said defaulters
would not be penalised as the exercise was optional.
"I feel so uncomfortable wearing it," a man on traffic duty told
Reuters when asked why he did not wear the diaper.
The experiment invited much ridicule on social media with
critics questioning why the city authority did not rent more
portable toilets. Many devotees were seen urinating in the park.
"This has got to be the dumbest idea of the year," said Twitter
user Joseph Brian Calimon.
An authority official defended the experiment as a "practical"
option, adding in a statement that adult diapers are "used
regularly as standard operating gear" by U.S. soldiers,
Buckingham Palace guards, and astronauts.
After the Mass, about a million people took part in the
procession for a 5 km (3 mile) walk to the Basilica of the Black
Nazarene with a centuries-old black statue of Jesus Christ,
which is widely believed to have healing powers.
Barefoot devotees lined the streets to see and try to touch the
life-size statue of Jesus kneeling with a cross, in a festival
held in the former Spanish colony for more than 200 years.
At least one devotee was crushed to death, while hundreds
fainted or suffered minor injuries, as a sea of humanity was
funnelled through narrow streets for the largest parade in the
predominantly Roman Catholic country.
(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato; Writing by Tony
Tharakan; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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