According to the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), some six million people attended Pope Francis' closing Mass at the Quirino Grandstand Sunday afternoon and lined the route between the venue and the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila.

 

This was the initial crowd estimate by the MMDA as of 5:30 p.m., when the Pope left the Luneta and headed back to the Nunciature.

 

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino told dzBB radio's Cecilia Villarosa this was the same estimate reached by police.

 

When asked to compare this with some four million who attended Pope John Paul II's closing Mass in 1995, he said: "Nalampasan natin yan."

 

"Maulan ito kaya either ang ibang daragdag di nakarating at yung nabasa, hindi nakaalis [ng bahay]," he said.

 

Tolentino also thanked the public as well as government agencies for their cooperation.

 

"Napakaayos po, kung ano ang pinlano, natupad," he said in an interview on dzBB radio.

 

Sunday's Mass was the last public event to cap Pope Francis' five-day Philippine visit.

He is to return to Rome on Monday morning.


Comparing crowd sizes

 

Just the day before Pope Francis' Luneta mass, people occupied the streets from the Apostolic Nunciature to MOA Arena and back, as well as the actual venue where Pope Francis was set to meet with families. The NDRRMC estimated that there was a total of 106,000 people straining for a view of the pope.

 

But the Philippines has seen its own share of large crowd gatherings, even before Pope Francis’ arrival.

 

In 2009, the NCR Police Office (NCRPO) said that there were around 175,000 people on the streets during Cory Aquino’s funeral procession. Cory rose to power in the wake of the People Power march in 1986, where an estimated 2 million people took to the streets to oust then-President Ferdinand Marcos.

 

And just before Pope Francis arrived in the Philippines, 5 million people celebrated the feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila. When then-Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines in 1995 for World Youth Day, more than 4 million people went to Luneta.

 

On an international level, during Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding in 2011, there were some 500,000 people gathered outside Buckingham Palace to watch the ceremony.

 

Last week, on January 12, the interior ministry of France said that 1.6 million gathered in Paris in the wake of the multiple attacks than began with the shooting at Charlie Hebdo. — Joel Locsin and Bea Montenegro/JDS/TJD, GMA News