CEBU CITY—It took just five minutes for the gruesome reality to sink in for 13-year-old Embrelaince Therjoy Ponce.
Embrelaince on Monday came face to face for the first time with the coffins bearing the remains of her mother, father and three siblings at a funeral home here a day after her father went on a rampage that he ended by taking his own life.
The girl, accompanied by relatives and social workers, first approached her mother’s coffin spending at least five minutes there before viewing the remains of the rest of her family, according to those who were at St. Peter’s Funeral Home on Imus Street here where the bodies were brought.
Unfathomable grief
There was no other way for Embrelaince to express the unfathomable grief inside her except through ways that grief finds its way out for countless of others in a similar situation—shed tears and cry in an anguish coming from depths no one could measure.
Embrelaince was the only one left in her family now after her father spared her from his rampage because, as relatives and close friends of the Ponces theorized, he loved her so much.
It is, however, difficult to determine what psychological state Embrelaince is in now, according to officials who had expressed concern over the tragedy’s impact on the girl, who is turning 14 in December.
Internet’s truth
Relatives initially tried to shield Embrelaince from the brutality of the fate that befell her family by telling her that while her mother, father and siblings were wounded, doctors were trying to keep them alive.
At the home of aunt Thelma Billones, however, what her relatives tried to hide from Embrelaince was laid out in the open by the Internet. At 4 p.m. on Sunday, according to family friend Yolanda Daan, Embrelaince turned the computer on at the Billones residence, connected to the Internet and found that what she had dreaded had come true—her entire family is gone.
Fit of rage
In a fit of rage that no one could understand yet, her father Emmanuel, a former seaman, shot his wife Melinda; daughters Elaine Grace, 26, and Heather Joy, 25; son Emlin Bridge, 18 and helper Anastacia Deñiega, 30, inside the family residence in Talisay City. The rampage ended with Emmanuel turning the gun on himself.
The Provincial Council for the Welfare of Children, headed by Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale, had expressed concern over what effects the tragedy would have on Embrelaince, how it would influence her growth as an adult or how she could be helped to deal with it.
Members of the council met on Monday at the vice governor’s office. It was attended by Daan, the Ponces’ family friend who first took Embrelaince in her care before turning over the girl to the Billones family.
The council, said Magpale, is waiting for a report from the Talisay City social worker who is handling the case of Embrelaince. Whether Embrelaince needs a psychologist, according to Magpale, would be known from the social worker’s report.