Dying and living dead

Mariano B. Carrasco

NEWS came out in this paper lately, written by a correspondent, that only Attys. Ramon Tabor and Edgar Cabanlas, and Mr. Maxi Rodriguez are the candidates running or “squaring off” for the congressional post of the 2nd district of Cagayan de Oro. We have no axe to grind against the correspondent and I don’t exactly know his angle, but I don’t think he’s been reading Gold Star well enough these past days.

In a fore-headline printed in the front page, Gold Star has previously reported about the intention of Atty. Evangeline T. Carrasco, my wife, to run as an independent candidate for the same congressional seat, and I have also previously written about it. Perhaps the correspondent could more precisely say that she is negligible because she does not have the money, a party, and has no intention at all to buy votes and favors. But certainly, despite her limitations and foibles, she is not running for her “sarili.” She has simple platforms, too, which might benefit all of us, including you and some of your relatives, perhaps.
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Many are dying and many have died because they could not put up the cash deposit required by private hospitals. The patients would bleed to death or suffer untreated or would be transferred to government hospitals where long lines of indigent patients await. We understand that hospitals do need to survive financially so they can continue to operate. For the poor or indigents who are brought to private hospitals in emergency cases (say, vehicular accidents, gunshot or stab wounds, stroke or heart attack), serious and immediate medical action should be done to save lives. There should be legislation or a law wherein government would assure or guarantee payment of the cash deposit required by private hospitals in such cases, say, in the amount of ten or twenty thousand pesos. This is one of the bills or law that my wife, Atty. Evangeline T. Carrasco, would sponsor if she gets elected, and which other congressmen would likely support.

She would also work for the passage of a law whereby government will provide not only for embalmment services and coffins, but also funeral cars and funeral homes at every local government unit. Coffins should not be displayed on the roadsides or in cramped hovels and brought to the cemetery aboard dump trucks.

The deceased, especially the poor and their families, deserve a little dignity and comfort in times of grief. The government can well afford the cost of funeral cars and funeral homes even as they destroy viable concrete roads to build new ones so the billions of government budget could be partitioned by corrupt officials and contractors.

Of course, she would also work for and support genuine agrarian and urban land reform in a society like ours where landlessness, homelessness, joblessness and squalor is abundant in the midst of enclaves, malls and condominiums. Certainly, even the rich and the elite would want to be surrounded by a society living decently and less criminally inclined.
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When we die we are supposed to rest in peace. Hence, the initials R.I.P.. But sadly, in our society, the dead would always come back resurrected every election. They would come back as shadows at the back of the candidates. Candidates would want them to be participants in elections! Even dead voters would come back to life, too— when they vote. Why can’t we allow the dead to finally rest?

(Mariano B. Carrasco is a lawyer based in Cagayan de Oro.)