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Author Topic: INHUMANITY OF INDIFFERENCE | 'Padyak' driver dies in front of passing pedestrian  (Read 11694 times)

Rockford

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INHUMANITY OF INDIFFERENCE | 'Padyak' driver dies in front of passing pedestrians


(Editor’s Note: A shorter version of this piece was posted on C.J. Chanco’s Facebook page. InterAksyon.com sought C.J.’s permission to run the piece. He sent us this.)

I was at first reluctant to write this. Afraid of being accused of taking literary advantage of life’s many tragedies. But some things cannot be left unsaid.

On a rainy Friday night, a man lay motionless on the sidewalk below the LRT right across De La Salle University-Manila. It was clear he was sick, and needed urgent attention. He was a de-padyak driver.

Security guards from DLSU were the first to arrive on the scene, I was told. His pedicab had stalled for half an hour in a corner of Taft before I arrived. I would not have seen him if the jeepney I’d been riding had not stopped at Quirino, and I had to walk the rest of the way to Vito Cruz.

The guards were reluctant to shelter him at the university. The DLSU clinic had apparently refused to grant him entry.

Maybe one of the nurses could come out and see him then? I asked. To verify, at the very least, whether or not he was still alive?

They would have to check. Would have to seek bureaucratic approval from the school authorities. Bureaucratic approval for the life of a man, who just might be a con artist. It was Standard Operating Procedure, after all. Perfectly understandable.

Okay. Did he have a phone? Maybe we could call his relatives.

There was nothing in his belt bag. Someone had probably snatched it in the quarter of an hour or so that he lay slumped motionless inside his pedicab before the guards arrived to check on him.

(Only the DLSU guards, by the way, did anything. There were a couple of cops and an MMDA officer on hand and they did all they could -- as passive observers.)

I felt for a pulse. Nothing. The guards performed CPR for the second time. One of the bystanders, recognizing him, had rushed to alert his relatives. He was from Munoz.

We looked desperately for a cab, an FX, a bus, another pedicab -- anything -- to take him to the hospital. A full 20 minutes ticked by, and not one of the cars stopped to pick him up, or even paused to see what was happening. Not even in Pinoy usisero spirit.

His family arrived minutes later. Amid the increasingly hysterical wails of a woman, presumably his wife, I could only catch that it was his “pangalawang beses” (Second what? Stroke? Heart attack? Seizure?)

At this point, I knew it was too late. Even a man without a medical degree can understand the first 10 minutes after a heart attack or a seizure can mean the difference beween life and death.

At this point, not one of the La Salle students streaming out of Henry Sy Hall and into their private cars bothered to look. A crowd, however, did gather around the man’s body, which was rapidly turning cold: his fellow de-padyak drivers, JC, Renzo, and the other street kids, who were flagging down occupied taxis and banging car windows to get them to pay attention. Not one of them ever did, and only a tricycle driver -- probably another relative -- finally agreed to take him to Ospital ng Maynila.

The rain was pouring down, of course, and it was rush hour. Perfectly understandable.

I, for my part, was useless, as usual. I never got the man’s name. As his family brought his body (now cold and stiff) into the pedicab, I could only watch the scene unfold. Moments like these, I would later realize, bring a certain mental clarity, a numb blankness, before questions (and guilt) start nagging at the back of one’s head.

If the man did not have to pedal in vain for hours on end, ferrying St. Scho, CSB, and DLSU students to and from the bars and discos around Taft -- in the heat and the rain, for less than a hundred pesos a day -- would he have suffered the same fate?

If he had collapsed in a sports car, carried a La Salle ID (as I did) -- or was, for instance, someone’s prized purebred pet dog and not a human being -- would De La Salle Inc. have let him in?

He was around 50 -- old enough to be my father. Did he have children? A wife? A pet dog? Could he afford maintenance meds? Did he have a doctor? Did he have health insurance?

If his family took him to a public hospital, would they have to foot the bill?

Would the doctors even care? Certainly the school hardly did.

It was half an hour or more before the guards reached the man and called for an ambulance. And none arrived. They called the police first. The man’s relatives from Munoz were ahead of them (while the PNP and MMDA officers looked on, stupefied).

Now, be fair, I’ve been told. What if the school simply was not prepared to deal with such an incident?

The university clinic doubtless has proper equipment to deal with emergency situations, in or off campus. The school has enough money to spare to refurbish our canteens and make each one look like a five-star resto -- and not enough money for the clinic? The families of La Salle students do not pay 150,000 to 200,000 thousand pesos a year for nothing.

By the time I arrived, the man had no pulse or it was so weak none of us could feel it. I felt the guards, who have doubtless received first aid training, knew what they were doing. They had administered CPR before I came.

Again, I asked if we could at least carry the man into the south gate lobby - which was just a few meters away from where he lay. The guards refused, not until they received permission from the school administration or the security office. Again I asked if a school nurse could at least come out and check on him. They had received no approval from "sa loob," so we could nothing.

Again, it was raining hard outside.

I am not blaming the guards. The La Salle guards did all they could at the time and had already gone far beyond the call of duty. I'm blaming whoever was "inside": the baboon who had neither the heart nor the brains nor the common sense to at least say, “yes, bring him in.” This is bureaucracy at its finest. The school's inaction was inexcusable whichever way you look at it.

It was also probably afraid of having to foot the bill if they had brought the man to the hospital. They would have had no such qualms if Henry Sy tripped on some sidewalk on Taft, broke his ankle, and had to be brought to the clinic, ASAP. The man can afford it, and in fact paid for his own building on campus.

So yes, this is -- at least partly -- a rich versus poor issue. Bureaucracy with all its attendant ills arises from a system that prizes efficiency more than humanity, money more than compassion and common sense. Social insensitivity is part and parcel of a system that has normalized inequality, promotes fear and distrust of the “other” -- especially the “rabble on the streets” that we would rather flush away.

Are we being unfair to the school? Perhaps. But there is no fair play when a man's life is at stake and we did nothing, when we could have done everything. And I say “we” -- because I am as much involved in what happened, and what is happening (to the university and to the wider world) as the baboon inside.

We are told, at times like these, not to overreact, not to be emotional. That it happens all the time. That there is nothing we can do. That children and old men collapse of neglect, starvation, or sheer exhaustion, every single day. That they die ignominious deaths out on the streets, in slums, in war zones, in prisons, in dumpsites, in distant lands far from their families.

That they drop dead like flies -- as nameless in death as in birth. The fact is: The way we treat these nameless millions in death is in direct correlation with the way we regard them in life.

That is, like trash. To be flushed out of the streets.

I am struck at the callousness of universities that earn tens of millions of pesos to teach their students how not to give a damn about the plight of the rest of society, in the world beyond their white walls, beyond their conscience-tight, air-conditioned classrooms.

As though money can ever shield young people from reality. But they end up blinded, not immunized.

I am struck at the reality of how cheap life is, in a society that wears its values and casts them off when they prove inconvenient; casts them off like they shrug off countless, nameless millions because they are somehow beneath us.

It’s as cheap as our collective hypocrisy.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/64936/inhumanity-of-indifference--padyak-driver-dies-in-front-of-passing-pedestrians-near-dlsu-taft

Try reading:
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/65086/how-he-died--the-story-of-reynaldo-carcillar-a-pedicab-driver-who-died-on-the-streets-of-manila




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vash_salbahe

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a sad story of humanity...

amaru13

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So sad. May mga pangyayari kasi na kung sino na yung tumulong at nagdala sa hospital eh siya pa yung napapagbintangan na nakabangga kaya't hinohold sila sa presinto for questioning.. Kung hindi pa dahil sa reporter ng NEWS 5 na naglakas loob malamang ilang oras sya nakahandusay dun.. Masyadong magulo ang batas natin pag dating sa ganitong bagay.. :( :( :(

lady_spyngtondo

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:( wala na akong masabi... tao nga naman

spyDetekteb

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This is the story sa nangyari sa driver..

At around five in the afternoon of Friday, June 21, 2013, 51-year-old Reynaldo Carcillar arrived at the Pasay City shanty where he lived to have merienda with his wife, 39-year-old Carmencita, and their two children, three-year-old John, and one-year-old Reiner James.

It was his last meal with his family. [See: Pedicab driver dies in front of pedestrians]

In a few hours, while transporting a passenger on his pedicab - which he christened "John and Denver" - Carcillar would suffer either a heart attack or a stroke.

In 2009, Carmencita said Reynaldo had his first heart attack. He almost died in his sleep. That night four years ago, he was pale and cold and apparently clinically dead for half an hour, she told InterAksyon.com. Without proper training in CPR, however, she instinctively and desperately pumped her husband's chest until he regained consciousness.

Carcillar was not to be so lucky the second time around.

"Wala po siyang sinasabi na may sakit siya sa puso. Nag meryenda po siya ng 5 o'clock kasama ng asawa niya at mga anak. Nagbibiruan pa muna kami dito bago siya umalis," Jennifer Liro, wife of Carcillar's nephew, Melchor, recounted, after the pedicab driver left that afternoon. "May sinakay siyang pasahero papuntang San Andres o Estrada. OK pa daw siya noon. Nang sa may tapat ng La Salle, may isang estudyante na nakapansin, akala lang lasing lang po. Tapos may guard na nakakakita na nahihirapan na siya, so tinulungan siya."

(He didn't mention anything about his heart condition. He had merienda with his family. We were even joking around before he left. He took a passenger who was going to either San Andres or Estrada. He seemed alright at that time. But when he arrived in front of La Salle, a student noticed that he was slumped on his pedicab and thought that he was just drunk. Then a security guard saw him and helped him.)

Carcillar lay on a sidewalk right across the south gate of the De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila for some time before help arrived.

"May tumawag sa akin dito, hindi namin kilala," Melchor Liro, the husband of Jennifer and Carcillar's nephew, told InterAksyon.com. "Si Tito Naldo daw inatake. Punta kami dun sa Estrada. Nakahiga si Tito Naldo sa may gutter ng island."

(A stranger went to our place and told us that Uncle Naldo suffered from a heart attack. So we went to Estrada [a street right by DLSU]. He was lying right by a gutter.)

Liro continued: "Pumapara ako ng taxi, walang pumapara, may hawak nga akong kadena para pumara lang, yung ibang tricycle ayaw ding magsakay, buti nalang si Agot nakuha ko."

(I was trying to hail a taxicab but none stopped. I even had a chain which I used to get a cab. Some of the tricycles also refused us. Good thing we were helped by Agot Perez, a tanod at Barangay 729.)

It was around seven o' clock in the evening, Liro said, adding he was in a hurry to get a cab because he could still feel his uncle's pulse.

"Isang guardiya lang ang umaasikaso sa kanya ng abutan ko," Liro said.

(One security guard was taking care of him when I arrived.)

For his part, Barangay Tanod Perez said: "Nung tinawag niya po ako, nakita ko na nakabulagta si Naldo, walang magsakay na taxi, kaya ako na po ang nagtakbo sa Ospital ng Maynila. May dumaang pulis Pasay na mobile pero hindi sinakay."

(When Melchor called me, I saw Carcillar already lying on the sidewalk. Taxicabs refused to take him. That's why I took it upon myself to bring him to the Ospital ng Maynila. A Pasay City police car passed by but didn't offer us a ride.)

Perez said he was surprised when Carcillar's wife arrived at the hospital.

"Iniwanan ko na po sila doon, may mga sumigaw na ibang pedicab driver na 'pangalawang stroke na niya yan,'" Perez said. "Sa pakiwari ko dahil mainit noong umaga at tanghali tapos umulan ng hapon at gabi kaya na stroke siya."

(I left both of them there. I also heard some pedicab drivers shout that it was already his second stroke. I guess the heat in the morning and afternoon, then the rains in the evening, must have triggered it.)

When he was brought to the Ospital ng Maynila, "wala na daw pong pulso, patay na daw po," Carmencita told InterAksyon.com.   

(They told us he no longer had any pulse. He was dead.)

InterAksyon.com looked for - but failed - to reach the DLSU security guard who helped Carcillar. However, another security guard witnessed the incident.

"I was inside the Henry Sy building of the De La Salle University along Taft Avenue, when I heard the radio alert about the motionless man on the pavement in front of the north gate of the university," said the guard, who requested anonymity. He and "several of my colleagues tried to help and give CPR because we have Red Cross training," the guard added in Filipino. But it was too late.

-----

"May dumaang pulis Pasay na mobile pero hindi sinakay" - ang galing naman ng mga pulis nayon. di man lang sinakay.. SMH...

dweizz

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malamang kung ako nandoon , wala rin ako ginawa... tuloy lang ang lakad... sabay tanong sa sarili...ano kaya meron doon? may naaksidente pala... may mga tao na nakikiusyoso... kaya na nila yan

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sabi nga sa napanood kong isang koreanovela- iba ang taong naawa sa taong tumutulong

it ain't over. . .till its over

freeyourmind

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how would people know how to do cpr/chest compressions/ call an ambulance..IF THEY DONT KNOW HOW TO? this should be in the curriculum..you have to start educating people. our govt is young. accept that. do we have to drown from stupidness or learn to use our brain? hay sayang mga utak ng mga taong ito.

Idiot

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how unfortunate

we even scrutinized china about not helping a child who was a victim of a accident and yet in our home backyard  we do this can of thing

the only talent of pinoys is scrutinized how crazy or how stupid or how cruel the others countries and yet in our own home we are more worst than them