Duterte birthday rally crowd: 330,000 or 60,000?

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/3 Apr) — The debate rages on as to how many attended the prayer rally held on major streets here during the birthday of former President Rodrigo Duterte on March 28.

Angel Sumagaysay, head of Davao City’s Public Safety and Security Office, talks to reporters at City Hall on Thursday (3 April 2025). MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA

Angel Sumagaysay, head of the city’s Public Safety and Security Office (PSSO), claimed that the crowd reached 330,000, a figure that sharply contrasts with the 60,000 estimated by the Police Regional Office in Region XI (PRO-XI) and the Davao City Police Office (DCPO).

In an interview with the media at the sidelines of iSpeak media forum at City Hall on Thursday, Sumagaysay said the city must be able to correctly assess the security needs of the crowd during big gatherings so it would know whether it needs augmentation of additional forces or not.

“What we are trying to avoid is a stampede,” he said, adding it is the reason they need to know the crowd count.

“In C.M. Recto Avenue and Roxas Avenue alone, we already recorded 205,000,” he said, adding that there were more in nearby streets.

“Imagine, one square meter, we estimated there were four people there. They were skin to skin, so we were actually shocked of the large number of people,” Sumagaysay said in the vernacular.

Sumagaysay said he got the numbers through their drone shots, PSSO-registered CCTV camera footages, and estimates from their personnel on the ground, together with other forces such as the City Transportation and Traffic Management Office’s engineering division.

He said he even advised other attendees to go home as more people kept coming as far as Felcris Centrale, located about 1.5 kilometers away from the Freedom Park, at the junction of C.M. Recto and Roxas avenues, where the stage was set up.

PRO-XI, in a press conference on Wednesday, said that they recorded 96,100 people who attended in simultaneous rallies in the whole Region XI, which include Davao de Oro, Davao del Note, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Davao Occidental, and Davao City.

But Maj. Catherine dela Rey, spokesperson of PRO-XI, said the crowd in Davao City peaked at 60,000, quoting estimates from the DCPO.

Over the weekend, Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo, spokesperson of the PNP, said on Sunday that only 60,000 supporters attended the pro-Duterte rallies in 200 areas nationwide.

When Sumagaysay was asked of his assessment of the city’s capacity to hold large crowd, he said the city is very ready to accommodate “hundreds of thousands” of people following the “successful and peaceful” birthday celebration rally for the former president Friday last week and the Iglesia Ni Cristo prayer rally last January.

But he suggested that a much larger space for Davao City must be studied to accommodate more.

Sumagaysay said the factors which can affect the readiness of the city to host large events include the nature of the event, the organizers’ expected number of crowd, the anticipated behavior of the crowd, VIP attendees, the weather pattern before the event, who the performers are if applicable, among others.

Supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte gather in Davao City to mark his 80th birth anniversary on Friday (28 March 2025). Duterte is being detained at the detention center of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands pending trial for alleged crime against humanity of murder linked to his bloody “war on drugs.” His supporters are demanding for his release and return to the Philippines. MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA

“Yet again, we need to get good and accurate estimates because we are trying to prevent stampedes to happen… As long as there are proper intersectoral coordination,” Sumagaysay said.

“We respect the police estimates because they have their own way of estimating crowd. But for us, I stand with our estimations that the crowd reached more than 300,000,” he stressed.

The prayer rally for former President Rodrigo Duterte, who was mayor of the city for a total of 22 years, resulted in heavy traffic congestion downtown as the whole Roxas Avenue and C.M. Recto Avenue, and part of J.P. Laurel Avenue, were closed to vehicular traffic.

The patriarch Duterte is now at The Hague, the Netherlands for his trial at the International Criminal Court for “crime against humanity of murder” in relation to his bloody “war on drugs” since he was mayor until becoming president.

He has filed his candidacy for mayor of Davao City for the 2025 elections, challenged by Karlo Nograles, former Civil Service Commission chair and son of Duterte’s former political rival, the late Prospero “Boy” Nograles.

Rodrigo was mayor of Davao City from 1988 to 1998, 2001 to 2010, 2013 to 2016 and President from 2016 to 2022. (Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)