Sunstar Essay: A long, sad story

Saturday, October 22, 2011

AS I took a cab to office some days ago, I realized how much our world is hurt and horrified by the deaths of a married couple and three of their children in the family home in Talisay City—the man shooting his wife and children, and himself.

Even the woman house help, Anastacia Deniega who probably tried to stop Emmanuel, was shot dead.

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The taxi radio was loud.

You might have known in particular the wife Melinda, the husband Emmanuel Ponce, and the children Elaine Grace, Heather Joy, Emlin Bridge before they died.

The living youngest in the family, Embrelaince, is now alone in the world at 13.

A painful story, it surely is.

Out from the silence in that taxi ride, the cab turned left from the Capitol to Osmeña Blvd. as the driver murmured, as if to himself, that the bodies were at the St. Peter Funeral Homes in Cebu City brought from Talisay where the tragedy happened. “Tingali trapik ngadto sa Imus street karon,” he said

I got down from the cab on P. del Rosario St. At the side of the road on my way up to the front office, I caught the conversation of a couple of women. It was the fault of the wife, one woman told her friend. She probably didn’t give enough attention to him, he needed it.

I entered the Sun.Star building and I caught an officemate asking someone else why the relatives’ decision was to bury the family in Sorsogon, Bicol. The man should be buried in Cebu. They can bury the woman in Sorsogon, where she came from, he said
Hey, but why not all in Talisay?

Why not all in Sorsogon?

If in Sorsogon, is it so that the only living child in the family, young Embrelaince, could forget more easily? That is, if there’s such a thing as forgetting the sad final journey of loved ones.

There’s talk of a decision by relatives to bury the family separately—Emmanuel alone in Mabolo while Melinda and her three children will be made to rest in Sorsogon.

At the end of that day, on my way home, my house help met me at the door and asked, “Pila ang namatay sa Talisay, ma’am?”

What do the neighbors tell of the life of the couple, and the children? Is it true that the man hurt his family through these violent years? Was it a family quarrel or did Emmanuel, who was a seaman, damage his brain from a fall in the vessel where he worked? Or did he recover completely, and was it, instead, the result of “social isolation” in his job as a mariner?

A friend wonders how much a maritime work is worth in terms of perseverance that a seaman like Emmanuel gives, for the pay and the experience. A sense of isolation and the unpredictable conditions at sea are in the life of a seaman, he says.

If the job isn’t tiresome, causing fatigue, it could also be boring from day to day, hour to hour. Especially for the crews, they are said to complete service for almost a year before they can take a leave for home.

As for the Negrense housemaid, she’ll be buried in Talisay City, still close to her grieving husband.

In the Ponce family, there’s a long story behind all these, even signs of a happy past, like the interesting choice of the children’s names—like names taken from a book, and from the Bible. Emlin (which is a variant of the Latin name Emil) Bridge, Elaine, Heather, Embrelaince.

A Google search for Embrelaince, however, will give you information almost only on this young Ponce girl from Talisay whose entire family died in a horrifying slaughter and suicide.

The girl needs help and a quiet life where privacy will be her strength. Perhaps after the bodies shall have been buried in Sorsogon and Cebu we, the strangers who also grieve for her, will continue to pray for her and also finally leave her alone.

(ecuizon@gmail.com)