Rage within the Machine

How many children need to lose a father? How many wives need to be widowed? How many fathers need to bury a son? How many more mothers need to suffer the loss of a child before man finally learns to control his rage within his machine. If you ask the family of George Anikow, one life is already far too many, too large a price to pay, too deep a pain to endure. 

Last Sunday, November 25th, at around 4:20 a.m., George Anikow, an American diplomat, was stabbed to death for merely tapping the hood of a car. Although reports vary, it seems that the foreigner got into an argument with four men in their 20’s as they tried cutting through the village, which led to the foreigner tapping the hood of the car as he walked away. 

The reports from the guards claim that they had stopped a Volvo SUV from entering the village and were asking the identities of the four men when Anikow, a Bel Air resident, reportedly intoxicated and presumably walking home after enjoying a heavy night out in one of the many nearby bars, joined in the conversation and told the men to cooperate with the guards. An argument took place, Anikow walked off but tapped the hood of the SUV they were in, which led to the four suspects mauling him and eventually fatally stabbing him right there on the street outside the guardhouse. 

Why he got involved in the guard’s inspection is irrelevant, as is the reason for him tapping the hood of the car, because aside from the question of why the guards did not fire a warning shot when the knife was pulled out or do more to protect the resident, the point is, what exactly is it that makes people turn into monsters once behind the wheel of their cars?

Put that same person in a line at the bank, grocery or wherever, and he or she is normally quite polite and well-behaved. But strangely, once seated behind the wheel, encased in expensive metal and tinted glass, that same law-abiding, tax-paying, God-fearing, Jose-Mari-Chan-Christmas-album-listening person feels anonymous enough to behave like they are in an Iron Man suit with no accountability to society. 

Case in point: A couple of Sundays ago, after exchanging the sign of peace with those around me in church, the same man who shook my hand just minutes earlier, would not give me an inch in the car park as I tried to back out. He pretended not to see me, of course, but even had his backup vehicle and his goons muscle their way in between us and force me off the road a little further down the street. Yet he took no issue letting me in front of him in the communion line. Go figure. 

It only ended well because I chose to let it go. But sometimes, not even being passive is a guarantee, as a friend of mine found out around this same time eight years ago, when he lost his life to a cowardly act of road rage. On November 13 2004, Mike Llorin, a C! Magazine photographer and a young father of three, was attending a car club meeting in Quezon City when he was gunned down for doing nothing wrong except for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Eyewitnesses recount that while the members of Grupo Toyota were chilling out at the outdoor tables of the Shell Select store swapping car stories and planning their next big event, two Honda Civics went racing past and appeared to have been involved in some sort of a traffic altercation with the driver of a green Mitsubishi Pajero that was giving chase. Failing to catch them, the coward in the Pajero then made a U-turn and cruised past the crowded Shell service station in Congressional Ave, where Mike and his group were hanging out, and fired off a handful of shots from his firearm. One of those shots hit Mike in the head. He died instantly. 
Eight years on, nobody has been charged for the crime. 

It is very difficult to comprehend, but it is almost as if some people feel that the car is a ‘disguise’ of some sort and behave the same way Internet trolls do when hiding behind a keyboard and a fictitious screen name. And it has to stop. 

Please leave your tempers and egos behind when you slip behind the wheel. Our roads are dangerous enough as it is. Especially now that the holidays are near and traffic is at its all-time worst, keep a cool head. Pride and testosterone have no place on our streets. At the end of the day, if you’ve stabbed a foreigner to death, widowed a loving spouse or forced three young children to grow up without a father, does it really matter who overtook who, who cut who off, or whether  someone tapped your stupid hood? Pick your battles.

Contact the author at facebook.com/mr.counterflow.