Living On The Edge

- July 04, 2007

I was on my way home yesterday and I happened to pass by a small commotion near a drug store. At first I only saw two men holding a stick of some sort looking down the front of a parked car. Curious, I went around to see what they were poking at. It was a woman, crying, in tattered clothes, with a child lying on the ground an arm's reach from her. I immediately assumed it was her kid but I could not tell whether the kid was alive or not. My attention was brought back to the crying woman when I noticed she was holding something shining on her hand. It was a knife. And she was waving it around, at times pointing it towards the lying kid, and at times towards herself. It wasn't sure therefore whether this one was a case of a hostage drama or a suicide attempt. It was obvious however that this woman was lunatic and that she was a danger to both herself and her child.

I immediately took aside and started filming with my cellphone camera. By then, a small group of individuals where already crowding around the crazy woman. Some braver men tried to convince the woman to give up the sharp instrument. She wasn't really hysterical. For me she appeared almost desperate and hopeless. I was worried for the child.

A couple of guys asked me about what was going on and I told them only as much as I knew about the entire incident. By then the crowd was getting thicker by the minute and there was some sort of tension among the spectators. The woman still had her deadly weapon frequently being pointed towards herself and her kid. Everyone was concerned for the helpless child.

There was one man who tried to distract her while another tried to pull the sharp instrument from her hands. Fortunately, they were able to take the knife away from her. She did not really give as much resistance as expected. While this was happening, some men approached the young kid lying on the ground, providing some protection in case this crazy woman would start hurting the child.

She pulled close to the walls and started hurting herself and the potted plant nearby. It was at that point that I started getting closer, and took the guts to check the child whether she was breathing or not. The child was alive and seemed to be asleep. I touched her forehead to check if she was febrile. She wasn’t. I did not see any wounds or bruises either. She was asleep, perhaps not mindful of what was happening to her mother.

The people started calling for the police. Some were already concerned for both the mother and child. I was more concerned really for the kid. The mother was definitely not in the capacity to take care of this child. Somebody from the crowd suggested to call DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development).

I knelt down and started asking the woman what was wrong. In between sobs, she was saying how she was frustrated that no one gave her money while she was begging. “Bisan piso-piso lang, wala guid” (All I was asking were peso coins but they won’t give me any.) I asked her why she needed the money. She told me she was hungry and needed to eat. I was trying to calm her down by asking her other questions like where she lived, who was she with, and if she wanted to have something for lunch. Some nurses working in a nearby clinic, who were actually watching the whole thing from their glass window, opened the door of the clinic and asked me whether the woman wanted something to eat. I told them yes and they gave me a plastic bag of bread. I gave it to the woman who refused it vehemently. She was saying that she did not want it because the people might scold her or something. I still offered the bread to her and she did take it but only to pound them on the ground and started wiping her face with them.

I withdrew from her and went to found a nearby loading station where I had my cellphone loaded and started sending SMS to my wife at home and my parents. I told them to contact ABS-CBN (which was near the area) or DSWD or the cops. I told them that there was some hostage/suicide incident going on at this location.

My wife thought I was sending here one of those SMS jokes. My mother thought I was the one being hostaged. She called me up the phone and while I was clarifying to her that I was not the hostage, some cops were already present in the scene.

On my way home I was thinking about the mother and child and how poverty can make one go over the edge and lose their sanity. I said a short prayer for both of them.