LOCAL government officials are not strangers to incidents of mass hysteria. While mass hysteria has occurred mostly in some schools through the years, one happened recently at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC). Twelve inmates, most of them women, acted wildly, prompting suggestions they were possessed by demons.
Things have, however, quieted down in the jail, which means that officials of CPDRC and the Provincial Government have succeeded in ensuring that the hysteria won’t spread to more inmates, which in CPDRC number by the thousands.
Reports say that while priests and members of religious groups visited the concerned inmates, doctors from the Provincial Health Office and the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center were also there.
Mass hysteria, according to experts, relies on the power of suggestion and is nourished by fear, sadness and anxiety, feelings that usually envelop a jail facility. A person acts wildly and the belief that he or she is possessed by evil spirits is then embraced by others.
The problem is when authorities, in this case officials of CPDRC, fail to distinguish mass hysteria from the notion of demonic possession. Thus the solution offered, like bringing in so-called exorcists, would likely worsen the problem.
Even the Catholic Church is careful in attaching labels to incidents like this. While Msgr. Joseph Tan, the media liaison officer of the Cebu Archdiocese, talked about the possibility of bringing in an exorcist, he stressed the necessity of conducting an investigation first.
“Dili gyud matawag nga conclusive ang nahitabo didto sa CPDRC kay tan-awon pa nato ang background sa mga detainees,” Tan told reporters.
The same objectivity and reliance on scientific study should be acquired by officials of institutions like the CPDRC and, in previous incidents of mass hysteria, the Department of Education (DepEd). In a way, this also applies to everybody, including those in mass media.
The next time somebody acts wildly, “nagkisi-kisi, gipaningot ug puti ang mata ug ang tingog lalaki” as Capitol consultant Marco Toral described what happened to one CPDRC inmate, consider seeking medical help first, because its cause may not be supernatural but natural.