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Situated within the newest central business district BGC, ‘Market!
Market!’ has the variety and freshness of a Sunday street market within
the distinctive surroundings and the essential comforts of an Ayala
Mall. Its themed retail zones, fruit and flowers market, and a regional
food and hawker’s area recreate the souk while still providing the basic
needs one expects.
Just a few minutes’ drive from the Makati CBD and surrounding areas, the mall offers a bright, airy, clean, safe shopping environment for the vast majority of relatively upscale shoppers who live nearby and who are more mall rats than serious market foragers.
But an incident involving security guards at the said marketplace have
been making its rounds in the internet, making the place look like it’s
unsafe. A reporter from Rappler happened to pass by the area and caught
something disturbing on his phone camera.
The reporter heard a commotion going on, but dismissed it knowing that
that area was a nest for drinking people at night. It can be seen in the
video that amidst a big crowd, a security draws an M16 and points it at
the people surrounding him. He kept on shouting “UPO!” (sit) while
frantically pointing the gun at some people. Most of them laughed and
jeered, maybe because they were too drunk to realize the real threat.
A few moments later, the same security guard brings out a metal
baseball bat with the same threat. He kept on shouting for the people to
sit down, which the crowd refused to do. Some were laughing at the
guard especially when he dropped the bat after standing on a table.
After seeing that the crowd was not acknowledging his authority, he
swings his bat on one of the tables, smashing a few bottles.
The reporter then decided to stop filming as the place was getting
more and more unsafe. As he slid his phone inside his pocket, another
security guard carrying a baseball bat approached him, demanding that he
hand over his phone. The man identified himself as a reporter from
Rappler and refused to hand it over. “Your reporting is not welcome
here,” the 2nd security guard told him, moving to take the
phone from the reporter’s pocket. The reporter protected his phone by
slapping the guard’s hand away. He then raises his bat trying to scare
the reporter, which did not take effect on the latter.
Frustrated with how the reporter reacted, the 2nd security
guard calls the other guard carrying an M16 over. But the other
security guard was so caught up in his own scuffle that he did not pay
much attention to the 2nd guard.
‘We really don’t tolerate those kinds of behavior, so that’s why they
were already immediately relieved from their posts,” an Ayala Malls
spokesperson says.
“Some other customers were jeering at him, making fun of him. I guess
that’s what triggered him to pull out his weapon. In any case, that’s
not the right thing to do and he should’ve called the other security
members to help him out in the situation.”
The names of the two guards were not immediately made available, but the management said it could provide the names later.
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