News Digest

Diaper-wearing volunteers guard Filipinos for Black Nazarene feast

Three hundred volunteers in diapers were on hand on Friday to form human barricades during a jam-packed open-air Catholic Mass in Manila before a statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through city streets for the annual “Black Nazarene” procession. More than five million Filipinos attended Mass at a park, with the Metro Manila Development Authority assigning adult diapers to volunteers who could not leave their posts, in a trial days before a visit by Pope Francis. About 2,000 diapers were distributed to civilian auxiliaries on traffic duty for the procession, but there was no data on how many used them. In a radio interview, Authority chairman Francis Tolentino said defaulters would not be penalised as the exercise was optional.

About 300 of them because they cannot leave their positions otherwise people will come in and break the line.

Authority chairman Francis Tolentino, explaining why volunteers at Friday’s Mass were required to wear the adult diapers

The experiment invited much ridicule on social media with critics questioning why the city authority did not rent more portable toilets. Many devotees were seen urinating in the park. “This has got to be the dumbest idea of the year,” said Twitter user Joseph Brian Calimon. An authority official defended the experiment as a “practical” option, adding in a statement that adult diapers are “used regularly as standard operating gear” by U.S. soldiers, Buckingham Palace guards, and astronauts.