This has been a very sad day for the country. It is a little past 1 AM and I should be in bed but two news items really made me plummet into a sort of personal despair.
1. The death of 41 passengers today when a mini-bus careened-off Naguilan, Benguet highway into the ravine. Only 6 people survived the crash when it took place at about 9:20 am.
What a sobering thought. Of families grieving right now because the bus driver lost control of the ill-fated vehicle.
2. The second news that was really depressing was the mobile video of the Manila police torturing the victim who apparently had disappeared last March 5, 2010. And then this video surfaced last Tuesday.
It was sickening. It was disgusting. These are the things that would yank us out of our senses and really make us face the barbarity of powers that had been corrupted.
The man was allegedly a criminal – caught stealing and staging a hold-up in Manila. But viewing the sickening video… makes the police officers much worse than the criminal at hand. If the criminal was doing all these things for survival, it was very obvious that Capt. Binayug was doing those horrible acts for power and pleasure. A rope was tied on the genitals of this man who was lying naked on the floor. He was being beaten with something and his responses would be meted out with a hard tug on the thin rope tied to his genitals.
Treated like a pig to be slaughtered.
The man who did the video on his mobile phone actually caught another police officer (in uniform) just standing there watching the whole thing. The man doing the sickening abuse was wearing white shirt and shorts, indicative a probable day -off or during the weekend where there were very few people in the police station.
That video easily ripped my heart into pieces. Videos such as these were reminiscent of the barbarism that we had seen from the cells in Guantanamo and Abu Graib… we did not know it was happening right here in the heart of the city.
The video barbarically showed us – the depths of our corruption. Nowadays, no one knows who is really looking after the welfare of the common people.
I was reminded of a movie where Nicolas Cage was researching the motivation behind the production of snuff films. His discovery led him to see the disparity of the genteel life lived out by the perpetrator during the day, and the shocking ritual that he did at night doing the snuff films.
Nicolas Cage’s character was trying so hard to understand the bi-polarity of the life of the criminal. He came from a well-respected family that thoroughly enjoyed the finest things in life. Yet the shocking nature of his pleasure was found in watching a hooded man hacked into pieces innocent girls who thought they were being paid for carnal pleasures.
In that movie, Nicolas Cage answer came toward the end.
Why do people commit such dastardly acts as if they are not accountable to anyone?
Why do police officers commit these inhumane acts right inside the police station?
And we can extend this question even beyond the borders of this nation. A recent video was linked to several Facebook account of a Filipina who survived being violently lacerated all over her face and body, beyond recognition in the Middle East. The video was taken inside the Emergency Room of a hospital manned by non-filipino nurses who, when you watch the video, took such slow pace in really attending to her wounds. The OFW looked dead because she was motionless – but when she was moved, she screamed the horror as evidenced by her deep wounds all over her body.
Why do people commit these things?
And the answer found in that movie by Nicolas Cage still rings true to this day…
BECAUSE THEY CAN…
Look at the picture below.
This was taken last August 10, 2010 at UP DILIMAN.
Yes this picture paints a thousand words. And in the light of the torture done… this could paint a thousand more.
Why do they do what they do?
BECAUSE THEY CAN…..
