It is a Saturday morning, and my daughter,
Sorgi had gotten out of bed unusually early, to have breakfast with me. She was
animated, almost frantic, as she scrolled through long messages in her iphone.
It seems the messages came in late last night, after she had gone to bed, arriving
exhausted from her residency duty. Her eyes were wide open as she tried to cope
from reading the long text messages, and at the same time, talking about the tragic
news that they carry.
The text messages came from Vixi (not real
name), a close friend of Sorgi way back in medical school. Yesterday afternoon,
a Friday, she and her dad had just picked up her younger sister who is due to
take the bar exams this November. The 3 of them were aboard their car,
intending to go to church. Then it happened.
Somewhere in Quezon City, they
were ambushed. A car cut across their path and 4 hooded men alighted. Her dad
was driving, and Vixi was seated beside him, busy on her cellphone. She heard
her dad say: “kinat na naman tayo (we were cut).” A few unobtrusive, popping
sounds followed. It sounded pretty much like tires blowing. Then the gunmen eased
their way back to their car. It was over in a few seconds.
When she looked at her dad, there was blood on
his face as he lay motionless, his body held in place by the seat belt strapped
across his body. She could only see a hole on the temporal area. Overcome with
panic, she opened the car door, not knowing what to do. Instinctively, she gave
chase, trying to get a glimpse of the attackers. At that point, the car
screeched to a halt, and a lone gunman came out, with rifle aimed at Vixi. She
froze dead on her tracks and made a quick turnaround. She did not hear a burst
of gunfire after that.
She now dashed back to her dad’s car. It
managed to jerk forward a few meters, probably because her dad’s foot was
pressed on the pedal. Her younger sister, still inside the car, managed to pull
the emergency brakes.
The next few minutes were horrendously unbearable. Vixi
attempted many times to stop cars passing by, tapping on their glass windows,
and pleading with them to help her bring her dad to the nearest hospital. None
stopped.
Finally, a grab car that dropped a passenger, pulled over. The driver
helped her bring her dad to the hospital while her kid sister remained for the
scene-of-the-crime police operatives. This street hero of a driver did not mind his car getting soaked in blood.
At the hospital, Vixi knew that her dad had
expired, but she nevertheless requested the hospital responders to go through
the motions of applying revival procedures for her mom’s sake. She learned
later that from a burst of 15 bullets, 7 hit her dad, and 8 hit the car. Not a
single bullet struck her or his kid sister.
It is now late Saturday night, and my daughter,
Sorgi woke me to finish this heartbreaking saga of grief and anguish. After her
residency-duty for that day, she went straight to the Vixi’s dad’s wake in
Quezon City. Sorgi knew that Vixi’s dad was a lawyer. Now she learned that he
was a prosecutor who handled big litigation cases, many of them drug related.
Vixi is the eldest of 5 siblings. Sorgi met 3
of Vixi’s siblings at the wake - one is a Diplomate in OB-Gyne medicine; one is
a lawyer; and the third, a medical student. She did not see Vixi’s kid sister
who was present at the ambush. Vixi’s mom extended her well wishes to Sorgi’s
mom who was also her classmate in medical school.
With a heavy heart and full
of anxiety, the mom revealed that Vixi’s dad is 64 years old and 1 year away from
retirement. Aside from his work, he attended to the needs of their 5 children,
like driving them to and from school. When he reached home, he would read and
study his work related cases from 12:00 midnight to 3:00 AM.
When they viewed the CCTV footages, it proved
that everything happened so fast, in less than a minute. Becoming emotional,
Vixi said she is alive now only because of divine providence. If she were not
minding her cellphone, her natural reaction would be to embrace his dad. At that point, she would then be open to gunfire.
It was
also revealed that underneath the car seat, Vixi’s father had a gun. Many are
of the opinion that he may not have put up a fight to protect his 2 daughters
from harm.
It is now Tuesday, 3 days after the fatal ambush. It is
painful to write this, but I go ahead and do it, because in doing so, I may be able to appreciate
and value life more. I believe in the universal goodness in man. But what compulsion
drives a man to kill another in front of his family? Is it anger? Is it greed?
Sometimes, I think dying is not half as painful
as witnessing your family killed in your midst. Those that are left behind will
feel and see a part of themselves die as well, for all that time that they
shall be living their earthly lives.
