Wednesday, February 16, 2011

8 Pulog Street





"No one lives there anymore,"  the food vendor answered when asked about the now infamous house along Pulog street. The two-story apartment with high walls made headlines last week after the discovery and successful rescue of an old woman held captive inside a cage.

"But I still see the epileptic guy outside the house," a customer said, who overheard my conversation with the vendor.

"After the episode was aired?" I was referring to the highly controversial XXX episode on the Kapamilya network.

"Yes, but I think they have already left."




The bestial treatment suffered by Lola Lourdes was an abomination beyond understanding.  Not from her own children.   Howls of indignation came from all walks of life.  Even  Julius Babao expressed his disgust on Twitter after learning that the house where the couple lives belong to the old woman.

Lola Lourdes' story had a follow-up episode the week after it was first aired.  TV viewers had learned that the couple still runs free and the glaring incompetence of Mandaluyong DSWD had shamed the entire department - especially its secretary, Dinky Soliman. We also learned how the pouring of love and support for the battered mother is helping her recover from the trauma suffered while being caged in her own house. 

But there is something missing in that episode:  The fate of the old couple.



To find out the answer, I went to Pulog street to stalk the house where Lola Lourdes used to live.  I was expecting trash and posters littering all over the place.  I  thought others were more extreme in venting their anger by applying terror tactics to drive the couple to insanity.

Since the story had already sent shock waves across the city,  I  thought of curious onlookers passing  by the street. The reclusive house with a green gate has no choice but to become a tourist attraction: a monument of shame to children abusing their frail mothers. But what I found instead was a row of quiet houses seemingly unaware that a nightmare had just descended in their neighborhood.

Highly respected tambays (who knows the affairs of Pulog street despite living a few blocks away) believe the couple still lives in that accursed place. Others claim they were already put to jail. While varied opinions tend to hide the truth, both tambays and the people at the karinderya across the house agree on one thing: the sickly couple was perhaps, tired of taking care of the stubborn octogenarian.  Had the barangay knew what was happening, the cruelty might have been prevented.



Haus of Pain


Meanwhile, the house stayed silent the whole time I was there.

Save for a bunch of kids enjoying the  late afternoon stillness by picking the sour fruits of a Kamias tree growing inside that empty place.




16 comments:

Yj said...

sad....

hindi ko napanood ang episode na yan, pero utang na loob, pano nila nasikmurang gawin yun sa sarili nilang ina?


isang bagay na kailan man ay hindi ko maiintindihan.

JapaneseAdobo said...

i have a heart for the elderly people and soon as i saw the episode on tv, i immediately changed channel. i cant bare watching such cruelty...it breaks my heart.im sure karma is on its way for the couple who treated lola lourdes as such..great entry...

my-so-called-Quest said...

is there anyway i can check the said episode?

and treating someone you don't know like that is beyond inhumane. pano pa kapag kamaganak mo? we don't know what lola lourdes used to be pero and no one deserves to be treated like that. :/

Nishi said...

langya talaga yang mag-asawang yan. they should pay. di ko alam paano, basta dapat managot sila.

i wrote "the white dress" after watching that episode. sobrang nadisturb lang. you're supposed to dread your mother's death, not look forward to it.

Anonymous said...

ito yung sobrang galit na galit si anthony taberna diba?

sad.

naiiyak ko nung pinapanuod ko to. naiimagine ko kasing nanay ko o lola ko yung ginagawan ng ganung kasamang bagay.

haaay.

~Carrie~ said...

Interesting how you can write about anything with flair. I have yet to read about this story, pero na-invoka agad yung sympathy ko dun sa lola Lourdes. How could they do that to her? Literally, cage her? :( Grabe naman. Naka-droga ba yung couple?

~Carrie~ said...

I saw the video. Mga #$%^&& sila.

Mugen said...

Carrie:

Share mo naman sa amin saan mo nakita yung video. :)

Sabi ng mga tao dun, paupahan daw yung bahay tapos tatlo silang maysakit. Probably unable to cope up with the situation, the couple resigned to applying cruelty to the weakest of them.

Jepoy:

Yup, yun yung sikat na sikat na segment ni Anthony Taberna. Hindi ka nag-iisa sa naramdaman mo.

Nishiboy:

Trial by publicity, they are already condemned.

Animalistic behavior kumbaga.

Mugen said...

DocCed:

I think Carrie found the video. Sabi ko nga, their actions are still, beyond comprehension.

JapAdobo:

The screams of pain as Lola Lourdes was being canned by the epileptic guy was too much to bear. Sadista amp.

YJ:

I wish there's a way for us to find the answer.

Ms. Chuniverse said...

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/nation/metro-manila/02/07/11/old-woman-caged-own-son

These people are not human. How can they do that to their own mother?!

Kiks said...

beautifully written. too bad i am not the first one to state that fact but happy enough to be reechoing it.

parang horror story with a lot of guilt, compassion and every emotion that this piece could conjure.

i look forward to more (articles, i mean. but not of stories on lola lourdes or the like.)

Kapitan Potpot said...

I will never understand why these people can do such horrible acts. Kung may nagawa man sa kanila ang matanda in the past, it remains unjustifiable to commit violence to the old and helpless woman.

Nabiyak ang puso ko that despite the maltreatment she endured, mahal pa din niya yung anak niya.

I'm hoping that I can include Lola Lourdes in my outreach list this summer. Gusto ko siyang i-hug after what happened to her. :(

Spiral Prince said...

I think it's also surprising how the publicity of something as twisted as this pales in magnitude when compared to other things which spread like wildfire devouring brittle plantlife over the internet, especially facebook. It would really make a difference if the awareness on this kind of inhumanity is raised to greater levels, which is fairly easier to do, given today's technology, than it was in the past. It might save the life of an abused family member somewhere.

Really, the tragedy of what Lola Lourdes went through, as with any other forms of abuse, especially domestic abuse, isn't as simple as it appears. It makes us all wonder what impetus lay behind such act, which is a paradox itself, too. There are many levels to it. Again, the indifference of the couple when they did the act is repulsing as it is appalling.

It should be noted to that even then, Lola Lourdes showed surprising grace and strength, both physical and otherwise. I believe this is a strong testament to our capacity to and the lengths we endure for love: in this case, the love of Lola Lourdes, a mother, who endured 9 months for the life of a daughter who eventually became her tormentor when she should've been a source of strength. She is an example we should follow when it comes to loving unconditionally.

Sean said...

finally saw the video but couldn't bear to finish it. very sad. made me want to go to my mom and embrace her.

Mugen said...

Sean:

You will get used to it. Humans are capable of beastly things only the most hardened of us could ever imagine.

Spiral Prince:

Lola Lourdes had shown everyone how low we have become in order to survive. I've been thinking this for years, but I think people from our time are more vengeful than the ones who came to pass.

Louie:

A cold reminder: Lola Lourdes is just one of the thousands of old people who are neglected, abused or abandoned by their own children. She is lucky, her plight was aired on television.

Mugen said...

Kiks:

In front of the master, I am humbled. Thank you. I will try my best to come up with socially relevant entries such as this one. :)

Miss Chu:

Just like what I told Louie, and the Spiral Prince, humans are capable of cruelty beyond what animals do.