Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao caused quite a stir when he made a surprise visit to the opening ceremonies of the 23rd Southeast Asian Games (Seag) at the Cebu City Sports Center.
Shortly after the Seag urn was lit and the games were declared open, the superstar pugilist, along with boxing impresario Wakee Salud, suddenly turned up near the oval sidelines, igniting a commotion that ultimately resulted into – much to the dismay of the security personnel – the spillage of hundreds of spectators into the tracks.
The incident started when Pacquiao was maniacally mobbed by the first few spectators to recognize him, and the frenzy snowballed after just a fraction of a second.
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When Pacquiao’s presence was announced, things got a lot worse: around 50 meters from Pacquiao, a pair of policeman uniform-clad personnel, believed to be criminology student volunteers, left their posts to get a glimpse of Pacquiao, leaving the steel barricades that kept the rabid spectators from dispersing into the field.
When the PNP-clad men returned to their assigned areas, it was too late. The eight-foot steel barricade separating the spectators from the tracks was ripped wide open, resulting into people spilling into the tracks.
“That just shows how popular Manny Pacquiao is,” said one media man who witnessed the incident. “Not even First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, or anybody of the bigwigs here drew that kind of response.”
