Glorietta
Today, I passed by Glorietta Mall for the first time since the explosion that killed 11 people (as of last count) and injured more than 100 others. That was only a few days ago.
With the Glorietta 2 area still closed to the public and so many other stores refusing to re-open, the mall is virtually a ghost town that’s not as well-lit as it used to be and very few (and dare I say, it brave) shoppers negotiating its halls. It might not even be accurate to call them shoppers as most of them are either on their way to the nearest MRT station (like I was this afternoon) or simply wandering aimlessly around. Yes, I know. I just blogged about that wandering thing only recently.
I can’t remember if I actually saw a child but what I can’t forget is what pretty much comes close to the stench of death, it’s the unmistakable smell of burning rubber that was very much in the air. I suspect that smell won’t go away in the next few days, either. I wish I could no more than pray for the souls of those who perished but as their survivors would say almost in unison on TV, there’s really nothing anyone could do to bring back what they lost.
It’s a very sad state for what has been my favorite mall dating back when the cinemas were still known collectively as QUAD and when the name Glorietta simply referred to the open air activity center where I remember seeing, of all performers, a teenage family act called The Nailclippers who had a pretty skinny lead singer named Diana, who I also remembered I had a schoolboy crush on.
Last year, Glorietta left an even vivid memory for me when I spent a lot of wonderful moments in many of its theaters and restaurants with someone who still means a lot to me. Maybe she was right after all in making that personal decision. But then again maybe a friend that I had dinner with last night was probably also right in arguing that hey, bombings were already taking place here for as far as we can remember. I really don’t know.
I don’t know. What made the whole Glorietta incident worse or better (if such a thing is possible) that it seems like it wasn’t caused by terrorists as initially feared but by an accident that the mall was probably responsible. Meaning that it was an accident waiting to happen for quite a while.
Wow! If that’s really the case, then how safe are our malls here. I wanted to shed a tear. I really do. But whether those tears are for the unfortunate victims of that tragedy or for us, for me, the remaining survivors who are still around to live through all of this, it’s not at all easy.
Life goes on and Glorietta will to return to normal or what passes for it eventually. I just wish there’s a better way of putting this whole thing into perspective. There’s really none.
