More than 10,000 people, most of them women, formed the astrological symbol for the female gender at the Rizal Park in Manila on Saturday to highlight the celebration of International Women’s Day.
The exact number of participants —10,168—could qualify as a new world record, according to the event’s organizers.
Representatives from the Guinness Book of World Records watched as the symbol slowly took shape. The Guinness category for such symbol in such formation has never been filled or won by any competing country or team.
On Saturday, the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) had the chance to make it to the Guinness Book.
The participants came from government agencies, state universities and colleges, academe, private sector and civil society groups, and were brought together at Rizal Park by PCW Executive Director Emmeline Verzosa and Adel Tamano, Coca Cola Philippines Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications.
The organizers used camera-equipped drones buzzing overhead to guide the participants to empty spots in the formation.
The night before, the Armed Forces drew the contour of the human symbol on the ground and rehearsed the movements of people they would escort to their designated spots. The contest rules do not allow any deviation from the path, which is closely monitored and photographed by the drones for (topside) verification.
Most of the women came from the project sites of Coca Cola Philippines in its international flagship “5by20 STAR program” (or five million worldwide beneficiaries by 2020).
Coke’s program, which began two years ago, helps women who own “sari-sari” or variety-convenience stores become better entrepreneurs.
The program has trained 20,000 women for the past two years and is targeting 15,000 women this year until the number reaches 100,000 by 2020, Tamano told the Manila Times.