The Ponce family massacre in Talisay City is a wake-up call for government and society to (1) care for Overseas Filipino Workers who get injured in the line of duty and lose their means of livelihood, (2) aim to build a virtually gunless society and (3) be ready to succor survivors of harrowing events like Embrelaince Therjoy “Ember” Ponce, 13, the last in her nuclear family after last Sunday’s carnage.
A relative, Paul Redula, said former seaman Emmanuel Ponce, who turned on his wife, grown children, housekeeper and finally himself using a .45-caliber gun, could not even break a glass but for an accident that supposedly activated his violent side.
So what psychological aid can bodies like the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and even the private sector offer to seamen who return to a landlubber’s life after unfortunate incidents and other OFWs who feel loss of dignity and suffer depression when they lose, unexpectedly or otherwise, their place as family breadwinners?
The bearish world economy is likely to send home hundreds of thousands of OFWs. (Think Saudization, the uphill battle against anti-Filipino health worker prejudice in the United States and an Arab Spring that is raising the premium for Pinoy workers to flee the Middle East.)
The government needs to prepare to help reintegrate the homecoming workers to society, not only to fulfill the President’s promise to make work abroad purely optional instead of a necessity, but to cut already-burdened families some slack.
Since the newly jobless ex-OFW is, frankly, a potential Emmanuel Ponce, the government should revisit its policy of issuing gun licenses and permits to carry to civilians as a first step to a total gun ban.
Our leaders, in fact, shouldn’t wait for another case of domestic violence involving guns, read: more in-house shootings, before they open their eyes to the wisdom of limiting gun ownership to none but soldiers and the police.
Such a move should be accompanied by stricter monitoring of weapons importation and local manufacturing so that these instruments of death never again land in the hands of those who are likelier to abuse them in a fit of passion.
The kin Emmanuel killed never stood a chance the moment he opened fire on them, unlike in a previous altercation, which at least wasn’t deadly though it was violent when his grown children retaliating after he threatened his wife with a knife.
Wouldn’t a life or more have been saved if there hadn’t been a gun in the Ponces’ home? Regrets always come after the fact.
Sadly, Ember has become the new poster girl for those who survive freak ordeals and the government and her extended family need to work together to offer her the compassion that is her prime need at the moment.
Those responsible for the minor need to minister to her away from the gawking eyes of a morbidly fascinated public. Make sure she plods through all the stages of grieving with no further scars than she’s already saddled with.
We can only hope government social workers have the requisite training needed to help see Ember and other children who are encountering trauma through their darkness into the light that the future always offers.