Guzzling dare turns fatal

POVERTY drove a ‘soon-to-be-wed’ construction worker to accept a challenge in exchange for a financial reward that apparently cost his own life.

The 29-year-old Rechie Dumalaon of Purok 4, Looc in Villanueva town, Misamis Oriental drank straight a full bottle of a long neck of rum with the promise for him to receive P20,000 cash from a friend who knew about his sad plight.

Dumalaon had a father in sickness who badly needs medication, plus he was about to marry in December with his live-in partner with which they have three children. But Dumalaon, after completing the challenge and getting his reward, later felt uncomfortable. He died at the Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan de Oro City.

According to P/Major Renz Marrion Serrano, the Villanueva town police chief, the victim died at midnight on September 3.

“This after he dared to accept a friend’s challenge of drinking a long neck bottle of (rum) just within 20 seconds in exchange (for) P20,000 cash,” Serrano said.

But some hours later, Dumalaon felt restlessness and suffered from a locked jaw, prompting friends and relatives to bring him to the hospital.

There, it was known that Dumalaon had an unhealthy heart condition it was not advisable for him to engage in the extreme challenge, so much so, in overdose on alcohol.

“I hope that it will serve (as) a lesson to everyone not to risk life in a dangerous game. We could not just play on something that may cost our own life,” said Jihnny Demata, who described his cousin Rechie as a good person who was always thoughtful of his family’s welfare.

Learning this, Provincial Board member Rey Buhisan said the incident is saddening.

“I pity the victim but undergoing such a degrading challenge for money is not the right solution to a problem. We should counter poverty by working hard to earn enough for a living,” said Buhisan.

Julieta Nacario, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s supervising statistical specialist and acting head of the Misamis Oriental provincial statistical office, had reported earlier that the poverty incidence in 2021 was 2.3
percent higher than the 15.1 percent recorded by the agency in 2018.

The first semester of the 2021 Official Poverty Statistics for Northern Mindanao, evaluates that a family of five in Region 10 needed an average of P11,920 monthly income to meet their basic food and non-food needs.

It is something that a construction worker like Dumalaon and the rest of the marginalized individuals in the region could not afford especially in this most trying time of the pandemic where downward inflation in the country’s economy is hard to bear.