Palpable Injustice

This society is senseless. We elect economists as presidents with no idea on the economy, we respect politicians whose hides are thicker than crocodiles’, and we let criminals run amok among our young and sensible citizens.

I sympathize with the family of Tara Bosch-Santelices, someone whose experience must not and should not happen to anyone.

What in hell’s fires happened to 23-year-old Tara Bosch-Santelices?

A hollow-point bullet strewn inside her head, a dull driver and his equally dull passengers going along Imelda Avenue in Cainta, Rizal — all made life miserable for Tara on the eve of her 23rd birthday.

You know what a hollow-point bullet does? It expands upon entering the flesh.

In 2000, I was shot at the abdomen by a ‘holdaper.’ I was inside a fully packed jeepney in the Luneta area. The cap-donning idiot had tried to grab my knapsack.

Fortunately for me, the jeepney driver was kind enough to bring me to a clinic along Dapitan Street in Sampaloc, Manila, and when I was refused medical help (just like in the case of Tara — them clinics were not equipped for emergency surgeries, the staff said), the jeepney driver was kind enough again to bring me to the university hospital of Santo Tomas.

Unfortunately for Tara, the dumb jeepney driver left her at the first clinic they went to. It took another hour before her friend got a taxicab to bring her to Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Hospital in Marikina City.

Although the crimes committed against us (Tara and me) is separated by almost a decade, the violent nature of these numbskulls has not changed a bit. This seems to be the modus operandi of these idiots — they don’t speak, they don’t declare “holdap ‘to!”, they just grab your bag, and if you don’t let go, they fire their guns away… never mind if it hits your spine directly, or expands in your brain, as what had happened to Tara.

Until now, the idiot who shot me just because he couldn’t get my bag full of yellow papers roams free. Right now he may be a pastor of some Bible-based community, or he may be a construction worker at a building in Ortigas, or he may be in hiding, after placing a bullet into the head of a hapless young woman on her way to celebrate her 23rd birthday.

Justice for idiots? Justice for criminals? Justice for numbskulls?

Palpable injustice, that’s what the family and friends of Tara probably feel right now. The criminal who senselessly disturbed their peace by placing a hollow-point bullet in Tara’s head should likewise suffer the same fate, but without the facilities of an Intensive Care Unit at Medical City. The helpless policemen, the helpless witnesses, and the dumb driver should all watch as we – the survivors and the friends and relatives of Tara — flay the criminal alive and dismember him right in the middle of Imelda Avenue in Cainta, Rizal. (Ronald B. Escanlar/pinoypress.net)