Death by Madness
Death by madness
Updated 00:41am (Mla time) Sept 09, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 9, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IT WAS a particularly horrific scene in this country that does not lack in horror. A man, his year-old baby in his arms, clambers atop a steel footbridge like one deranged, roosts there in the searing heat, occasionally swings wild-eyed from perch to perch, and, after more than an hour, leaps to the ground, killing the child and maiming himself on impact. His injuries are exacerbated by an angry crowd that besets him. Later removed from the scene and flat on his back in a hospital (but apparently quite willing to indulge a TV reporter), the father admits to no remorse.
Early on in the apparently unemployed Nestor Silang's perverse adventure last week, it was widely speculated that he was in the throes of drugs. Indeed, media reports alleged so--perhaps because of the notion that bizarre behavior like his can only be explained by a chemically induced "madness." (As an observer had commented, poverty and drugs make for a lethal combination.) But TV reports quoted Silang in the hospital as denying having been under the influence. It's possible that he was lying through his teeth, but by that claim, he presumably meant to say he was in possession of his faculties when he took his son and namesake on the fatal climb, and no imagined demons pushed him to do the deed.
Silang's wife--pegged by reports at age 35 but looking much older, and marked by an oddly quiet demeanor, as though she were (or perhaps she is) restraining a savage force within--has since filed a case of parricide. But until he is actually convicted and thrown in jail, the chance of his being pronounced insane-and consequently escaping physical liability for what he has done--is great.
It remains unclear what exactly the purportedly sober Silang meant to achieve. Presumably, to kill himself and his son as a means of escaping a life of misery. But in so public a manner, in broad daylight, complicated by TV cameras and a howling crowd? Perhaps it was more to claim the mythical 15 minutes of fame (not that he had the wherewithal to quote Warhol), as indicated by his readiness, despite his certain pain, to speak into the microphone thrust into his bandaged face, in a tone as though he had yet to--or maybe could not--comprehend what he had done.
What Silang did is not unheard-of. Once upon a time in this metropolis of our afflictions, a vagrant who could not stand his hungry son's cries beat the boy's head on the pavement over and over until the wailing stopped. There were few witnesses to the crime. And live TV action was not in vogue then.
It cannot be ascertained if Silang was seized by the same, or at least comparable, level of desperation. How, after all, does one measure despair?
But no less liable are the Quezon City authorities who appeared to have done nothing to prevent the child's terrible extinction despite the eternity that elapsed between the start of Silang's climb and his shocking leap. Watching the TV coverage, the observer flinching at the height of the father's possible plunge and the prospect of the boy's doom could also note the gawking crowd and the general bedlam below. There appeared to have been no effective crowd control and no skilled intervention by way of trained personnel to negotiate with the father for the child's safety.
And to think that authorities have had similar incidents to draw valuable lessons from.
It was only in May 2002 that four-year-old Dexter Balala died in the arms of a man who had held him hostage for two hours in a Pasay City bus terminal. Diomedes Talvo, obviously anguished and unhinged, had seized the boy from his mother at knife point and nicked and ultimately repeatedly stabbed him as police opened fire.
It was a crazed conclusion of a pre-dawn crime that had all the marks of police bungling, down to an unruly crowd, aggressive TV crews, maddening lights, absolutely no one equipped to speak with the hostage-taker in his language, and a coterie of cops that fired their guns with no consideration of the young, shrieking hostage. In the end, the autopsy revealed that the child bore not only five stab wounds but also four gunshot wounds.
The offshoot of that hostage drama was that the 341 members of the Pasay police force were ordered to undergo a 20-day training session in hostage crisis management. As many as 21 officers were slapped criminal and administrative charges.
And that was only two years ago. Expect more of the same in this seeming downward spiral of madness.
Updated 00:41am (Mla time) Sept 09, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 9, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
IT WAS a particularly horrific scene in this country that does not lack in horror. A man, his year-old baby in his arms, clambers atop a steel footbridge like one deranged, roosts there in the searing heat, occasionally swings wild-eyed from perch to perch, and, after more than an hour, leaps to the ground, killing the child and maiming himself on impact. His injuries are exacerbated by an angry crowd that besets him. Later removed from the scene and flat on his back in a hospital (but apparently quite willing to indulge a TV reporter), the father admits to no remorse.
Early on in the apparently unemployed Nestor Silang's perverse adventure last week, it was widely speculated that he was in the throes of drugs. Indeed, media reports alleged so--perhaps because of the notion that bizarre behavior like his can only be explained by a chemically induced "madness." (As an observer had commented, poverty and drugs make for a lethal combination.) But TV reports quoted Silang in the hospital as denying having been under the influence. It's possible that he was lying through his teeth, but by that claim, he presumably meant to say he was in possession of his faculties when he took his son and namesake on the fatal climb, and no imagined demons pushed him to do the deed.
Silang's wife--pegged by reports at age 35 but looking much older, and marked by an oddly quiet demeanor, as though she were (or perhaps she is) restraining a savage force within--has since filed a case of parricide. But until he is actually convicted and thrown in jail, the chance of his being pronounced insane-and consequently escaping physical liability for what he has done--is great.
It remains unclear what exactly the purportedly sober Silang meant to achieve. Presumably, to kill himself and his son as a means of escaping a life of misery. But in so public a manner, in broad daylight, complicated by TV cameras and a howling crowd? Perhaps it was more to claim the mythical 15 minutes of fame (not that he had the wherewithal to quote Warhol), as indicated by his readiness, despite his certain pain, to speak into the microphone thrust into his bandaged face, in a tone as though he had yet to--or maybe could not--comprehend what he had done.
What Silang did is not unheard-of. Once upon a time in this metropolis of our afflictions, a vagrant who could not stand his hungry son's cries beat the boy's head on the pavement over and over until the wailing stopped. There were few witnesses to the crime. And live TV action was not in vogue then.
It cannot be ascertained if Silang was seized by the same, or at least comparable, level of desperation. How, after all, does one measure despair?
But no less liable are the Quezon City authorities who appeared to have done nothing to prevent the child's terrible extinction despite the eternity that elapsed between the start of Silang's climb and his shocking leap. Watching the TV coverage, the observer flinching at the height of the father's possible plunge and the prospect of the boy's doom could also note the gawking crowd and the general bedlam below. There appeared to have been no effective crowd control and no skilled intervention by way of trained personnel to negotiate with the father for the child's safety.
And to think that authorities have had similar incidents to draw valuable lessons from.
It was only in May 2002 that four-year-old Dexter Balala died in the arms of a man who had held him hostage for two hours in a Pasay City bus terminal. Diomedes Talvo, obviously anguished and unhinged, had seized the boy from his mother at knife point and nicked and ultimately repeatedly stabbed him as police opened fire.
It was a crazed conclusion of a pre-dawn crime that had all the marks of police bungling, down to an unruly crowd, aggressive TV crews, maddening lights, absolutely no one equipped to speak with the hostage-taker in his language, and a coterie of cops that fired their guns with no consideration of the young, shrieking hostage. In the end, the autopsy revealed that the child bore not only five stab wounds but also four gunshot wounds.
The offshoot of that hostage drama was that the 341 members of the Pasay police force were ordered to undergo a 20-day training session in hostage crisis management. As many as 21 officers were slapped criminal and administrative charges.
And that was only two years ago. Expect more of the same in this seeming downward spiral of madness.
posted by Dante at 4:25 PM
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