Bridge plunge

Not counting yesterday’s scheduled promulgation of the decade-long Ecleo parricide case, the week in Cebu and elsewhere around the world ended not with a big bang but with a crackle, snap, pop, a loud thud and a fizzle.

The thud come from the sounds made by the latest jumper off the old Mactan- Mandaue bridge, whose plunge into the sea unintentionally claimed the life of Danilo Sison, who was engaged in spear fishing, his favorite past time from which he earned some money.

The fizzle came from the rocket launched by North Korea that didn’t make it past their territory. The rocket fell into the ocean to the collective relief of its estranged sibling/neighboring nation South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.

While the botched North Korean missile launch would have been the stuff of international analysis, Cebu was engrossed with the latest bridge jumping incident.

Sison’s family said they would file a homicide case, if only to make sure the jumper is held for treatment in a psychiatric ward.

While most people thought he was out to commit suicide, the man simply said he wasn’t feeling well and “just wanted to swim”.

At least five bridge-jumping cases in 2011 ended with a rescue at sea or a timely intervention that aborted a death leap.

Wednesday’s latest bizarre bridge episode should heighten police security and vigilance in both the first Mandaue-Mactan Brridge and the Marcelo Fernan Bridge.

There are security cameras installed in both infrastructure, for which the government has spent thousands of pesos, and continues to spend for its use and the staff that watches the monitors – assuming someone is present and attentive.

There’s a management board for both bridges, that’s supposed to be looking at more than lights and traffic.

No one can stop a determined suicide.

But if a jobless, aimless man, who is not in his proper senses can, with little effort, climb over the railings and lower himself to a ledge for a night swim using as a laungh pad a lighted, camera surveillance-covered government infrastructure, someone is not doing his job.

Where is the bridge patrol? Who’s watching those expensive camera monitors?

The next fellow out to pull a stunt on one of Cebu’s bridges across the Mactan channel may have sabotage on his mind.

But we don’t have to wait for that, do we?