GUINNESS RECORD. Arnold A. Garbanzos, who is the special coordinator for Guinness for the camp of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, shows the certificate of their Guinness World Record for the most number of people singing the national anthem in Iligan City last September 1, 2009. (Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY – Davao City will take a shot in breaking Bangladesh’s record of the most number of people singing the national anthem in one place two days before the elections.
The attempt to break the Guinness record for the most people singing the national anthem will be held at 5:00 pm on Saturday, May 7 at the Crocodile Park here.
The world record is currently owned by Bangladesh, where 254,537 people sang their national anthem at the National Parade Ground in Dhaka, Bangladesh on March 26, 2014.
The target of having 300,000 people in one place singing the “Lupang Hinirang” is just one of the categories which Davao City will try to break, said Arnold A. Garbanzos, the special coordinator for Guinness for the Duterte camp.
The other category is simultaneously singing the national anthem in multiple locations.
“So far we have confirmed that Tagum will join and General Santos will have around 100,000 participants. We also got calls from Pillila, Rizal and even the gatherings in Manila will be counted also for the Guinness,” said Garbanzos.
Rocky Balili, Region 11 political officer of the Duterte campaign team, said some groups in Davao Oriental, Digos, and Butuan also expressed their willingness to join the event in their own locations.
Open invitation
TARGET: 300,000. Event organizer Edison Morales (right) explains their planned set up of the Crocodile Park in Davao City on Saturday, May 7 as they attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most number of people singing the national anthem in one place. The organizers are targeting to mass up 300,000 people. (Zea Io Ming C. Capistrano/davaotoday.com)
But the organizers maintained that this is not only for the supporters of presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte.
Garbanzos said they made the invitation open to everyone regardless of their political parties.
“We will have to remind everybody that singing the national anthem is not a political exercise. There is no Liberal Party national anthem or Nacionalista national anthem, PDP-Laban national anthem. It’s a Filipino anthem so everybody sing,” he said.
“The purpose of doing the Guinness is this: we went through a political exercise, it divided our people. The penultimate purpose is let us unite,” Garbanzos said.
“Human na tong pulitika, kalimtan na nato to. Mag-unite na ta kay we are all Filipinos (Politics is over, let us move on. Let us unite because we are all Filipinos),” he said.
Barcoded IDs
All the participants will be given with identification cards that are barcoded.
Garbanzos said they have prepared 400,000 bar codes and are starting the distribution of the IDs in barangays.
“We need to hit the Guinness target of 300,000,” he said when asked why they have prepared that many IDs.
The registration will start at 9:00 in the morning and will end at 4:00 pm.
“After 4:00 pm we will not accept any registrant,” he said.
Balili said buses will ferry passengers going to Crocodile Park for free starting 9:00 am in Ulas, SM Ecoland, NCCC Mall, Gaisano Mall, SM Lanang, Panacan depot, barangay hall in Buhangin, Country Homes Cabantian, Agdao flyover, and Davao City Hall.
6,000 grids
Each participant will be assigned to a grid that can accommodate 50 people which are marked by letters and numbers.
Event organizer Edison Morales said by May 5 they have already placed color-coded buntings of the grid. He said one steward is assigned per grid.
“So there will be 6,000 stewards and they are not included in the counting,” Morales said.
Morales added that no parking will be allowed inside the vicinity. However, participants who have their own vehicles may drop off near the registration area.
He said the parking areas along the stretch of the diversion road will be placed by markings to guide the public of the designated areas.
Morales said the Crocodile Park can accommodate 307,000 people.
He said that they will start the preparation of the area on May 4 and a rehearsal is set on May 6.
The organizers also advised those who want to join to bring their own food. (davaotoday.com)
