Police may have underestimated crowd size at Robredo's Pasay rally, online tool suggests
MANILA, Philippines — The crowd at Vice President Leni Robredo’s rally in Pasay City on the occasion of the presidential candidate’s 57th birthday must have been quite sparsein the eyes of National Capital Region Police Office, which estimate that only 70,000 to 80,000 people attended the event.
According to online crowd estimation tool MapChecking, the NCRPO's lower-end estimate would mean 1.3 people for every square meter of the venue and 1.5 people per square meter for the higher-end estimate.
Even the NCRPO’s initial estimate of around 90,000 to 100,000 people might be an undercount, considering that these numbers would have meant that only 1.7 people per square meter to 1.9 people per square meter were present.
At these rates, the crowd along the stretch of Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard should not have been as dense as what Philstar.com witnessed when we covered the rally last Saturday.
From our vantage point on a platform situated close to the main stage near Jose W. Diokno Boulevard, the crowd fluctuated from around three people per square meter to four people per square meter.
According to MapChecking, this would have yielded a crowd that ranged from 159,987 to 213,316 people. If bumped up to five people per square meter, which is the maximum number of people allowed by the online tool, the crowd would have been at 266,645 people.
These estimates are far lower than the numbers released by organizers, who said that around 412,000 people were present at the Pasay rally. But it bears noting that MapChecking cannot account for spillovers into nearby roads.
INTERAKSYON: Scientist’s vs NCRPO’s crowd estimate of Pasay grand rally
Former DILG chief Alunan gives own estimate
A now-viral Facebook post by former Local Government Secretary Rafael Alunan III also attempted to provide an estimate for Robredo’s rally in Pasay City, which was graced by A-list celebrities and entertainers including Vice Ganda, John Arcilla and Maricel Soriano.
Alunan said that given that Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard has an area of 175,000 square meters and assuming that there were around three people per square meter, there would have been at most 525,000 people along the street.
"How many more people would you say spilled over to the peripheries and tributaries - 50,000?, 100,000?, 150,000?” he said. “One thing for sure, the crowd was mammoth, thanks to the organizers, volunteer groups and supporters. Take a bow everyone!"
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