Injustice: The road to suicide or heroism

Our friend Jeannie Goulbourn of the famous “Silk Cocoon” shop at the New World Hotel has dedicated the rest of her life helping people suffering from depression. When she lost her daughter Natasha to depression eight years ago, she decided to put up the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation  — conducting seminars and forums to various sectors including OFWs. Depression according to the World Health Organization could become the second most prevalent illness affecting humanity by the end of 2010. It affects the way a person feels about himself and the way he thinks, oftentimes damaging emotions, and depending on one’s state of mind, could very well lead to suicide.

Last Friday was the International Suicide Prevention Day, and the statistics about suicide due to depression are disturbing: according to a recent data, three out of 10 government employees have mental health problems with depression being the most common; at least 10 percent of Filipinos are clinically depressed; and 25 percent of the population will suffer from different levels of depression at some point in their lives.

And yet we Filipinos are said to be one of the happiest people in the world. But still, the incidence of depression in the Philippines is higher than any other Southeast Asian country. In 2004 alone, over 4.5 million cases of depression were recorded in the Philippines. It is most likely higher today. So many factors can lead to depression, but one common denominator is the feeling of injustice — the feeling of injustice because one was spurned by a lover or worse, the perception that one did not get justice from the system. This can lead a person to anger, desperation, and ultimately — violence. 

Such was perhaps the case with police captain Rolando Mendoza. He probably felt the whole world caving in on him when he lost his job, retirement benefits and worse, his reputation in his hometown of Tanauan, Batangas. His friends and relatives have concluded it was that deep depression that goaded him to go on a “suicidal mission,” believing it was the only way he could obtain justice.

Injustice or the perception that there is no justice triggers violence. It is what compels men into committing acts of desperation when they cannot get it from the justice system. This could be best illustrated in the movie Godfather when the mortician came to Don Vito Corleone after refusing the latter’s friendship because he did not want to have anything to do with the Mafia. The mortician believed in America and the rule of law. But when his daughter was beaten up and raped, and could not obtain justice from the law, he went to Don Corleone in desperation and asked for “justice.” Shortly after, the rapist “slept with the fishes.”

The other day, I happened to come across a YouTube video of a speech delivered by Ninoy Aquino on February 15, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. In that speech, you could clearly see the frustration he had with the injustices committed by the “Martial Law regime of Mr. Marcos.” Ninoy Aquino described the days he spent in solitary confinement and the exact number he was in jail — all 7,285 days of them — counting every second into minutes, the minutes into hours that turned into days and weeks. He described the loneliness he felt being away from his family. 

When I was still a news reporter for RPN 9, I had the rare opportunity of interviewing Ninoy Aquino several months before he finally came back to the Philippines on August 21, 1983. We conducted our interview in his suite at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Former Vice President Doy Laurel and Senator Lorenzo Tañada were there. I remember one of my first questions to the Senator was, “Why are you still going back when you know they will arrest you?” And his chilling answer was: “They can tell the soldiers to start cleaning their guns. I am going home.” At that moment, I could feel this was a man ready to die. In fact, he was not afraid to die. He had already made his peace with God.

The most telling of all was his statement that somehow, he will regain his freedom “maybe not in this world but elsewhere,” and that he knew that “sometime, somewhere,” he and Mr. Marcos will meet again — and in that meeting, he will have his “satisfaction.” Today his son with his namesake is president, 24 years after his wife became president. 

Admittedly, depression affects one’s state of mind, and the emotional damage due to desperation can lead to suicidal (or even homicidal) tendencies as in the case of Captain Mendoza that ultimately made him a villain. But on the other hand, desperation can become a catalyst for heroism — as was obviously the case with Ninoy Aquino who had clearly settled it in his mind that he would go back to the Philippines despite knowing it would cost him his freedom and even his life. “I want to prove to Mr. Marcos that… there is an indomitable spirit that will be wiling to take any sacrifices for our people. I shall therefore go back to the Philippines…” he declared. 

No doubt Ninoy Aquino and Rolando Mendoza are poles apart — because one’s depression turned him into a villain while the other one inspired him into becoming a hero. But one common denominator that both felt was injustice.

Hunger and poverty can sometimes stretch a man’s patience. But when there is no justice, or there is perceived injustice, it can either lead to heroism or worse — to violent suicide.

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