While at university, and at the peak of the popularity of CSI:[insert hip city,] we wrote a script for a CSI: Manila that went roughly:
INT: CRIME SCENE
A VICTIM HAS BEEN EVISCERATED OR OTHERWISE KILLED IN SOME HORRIBLE FASHION
PNP SCENE OF CRIME OPERATIVE: (LONG, PREGNANT PAUSE) MURDER.
CUE MUSIC
Admittedly, it was funnier when we acted it out. We were also heavily into substance abuse at the time. Nevertheless, we were able to make an entire season’s worth of shows where every situation was reduced by our bungling cops, like high school mathematicians, into simplest terms: someone is dead, it was murder.
Close to a decade later, we see that we were not so far off the mark because Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales commented on the alleged suicide of Trinidad Etong, broadcaster Ted Failon’s wife, thus:
“You want to take your life, you love your family, you are saying sorry, sorry for what?”
He said that it was “queer” that Mrs. Etong was apologizing in her alleged suicide note (actually given to Failon the night before) because, I guess, when deciding to end your life, apologies and other social gestures are thrown out of the window.
Gonzales added that he found it disturbing that the burden of doubt was being placed on Mrs. Etong, who was then fighting for her life.
He said that outpourings of support, media coverage of the investigation, and statements from Failon, his daughter and their maids, “in their attempt to enhance Ted Failon’s position” conditioned the minds of people that Mrs. Etong did in fact kill herself.
The case is far from closed, but with charges filed against Failon (for not reporting the incident) and his house help (for cleaning up the crime scene,) and an order from the Department of Justice to put him on an airport watchlist, it’s a safe bet that Mr. Gonzales is already downloading some obscure song by The Who and hunting for cool sunglasses for the press conference, negative paraffin tests and tainted crime scene be damned.
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