I agree with Bong Wenceslao. Almost everybody with anything to say on the gruesome fate that befell the Ponce family of Talisay City, as well as the time to say it, is weighing in on the incident.
Instant mind experts have converged on every available forum to try and analyze what could have driven Emmanuel Ponce to shoot and kill almost his entire family and the maid before turning the gun on himself.
Self-appointed psychiatrists and psychologists have pounced on every bit of information that could possibly shed light on the massacre — the prior head injury suffered by Emmanuel, his family troubles, financial difficulties, drug use, and of course jealousy.
Nevertheless, I do not find it surprising for analytical bedlam to ensue as a result of the incident. While violence has become an almost daily occurrence, it is still not everyday that almost an entire family gets wiped out in the hands of one of its members.
In other words, the incident, by its very circumstances, invites active participation and involvement by the entire community. No one can remain impervious to the incident. It shocked the community to its very core, so it is only normal that it would react in any way it can.
What I noticed in the entire brouhaha, though, is that almost to a man, all the analysts, expert or otherwise, seem too preoccupied with the mental condition of Emmanuel prior to and when he starting picking off his family one by one with his gun.
Nobody seems to have factored in the matter of God into the equation. I have yet to hear of any discussion whereby the presence or absence of God in the lives of the Ponces was viewed with any significance in relation to events that led to the abrupt ending of their lives.
How dedicated, for instance, was the family to God and how open were they to accepting His presence into their lives? And by this I do not mean just going to Mass or praying together. It is what happens after Mass and prayers that can reveal so much about the lives of the Ponces.
I want to introduce God into the equation because prior to the massacre, other incidents seemed to have been building toward this one great and terrible finale, incidents made remarkable by their being so inexplicably Godless.
These earlier incidents involved similar killings within families, of sons killing their own mothers, slices of distorted lives that normally God-fearing Cebuanos are not accustomed to, and ill-prepared to deal with, even in prayer.
I do not think the community, rendered more hollow than shocked, should focus only on the mental aspect of the case. In fact, I do not think it is a simple matter of a brain gone haywire. To me it looks more like a heart crippled by the absence of God.
So, rather than psychiatrists and psychologists putting their heads together to see what may have driven things toward their inevitable conclusion, maybe we should also call in the God experts to provide us with some spiritual perspective.
People might want to know what happens if God takes a break away from men’s hearts, or if divine emptiness happens at all. They might want to ask if any real effort is being made by the shepherds of the faith to gather back the stray flock and regroup them in the safety of pasture?
Or has everything been reduced to each man for himself? I believe these are the more crucial questions people, analysts or not, must answer truthfully about themselves in light of such a horrifying tragedy.