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OPINION: Desperadoes running amok

Manolo Quezon - The Explainer

So far <a href="http://ca.judiciary.gov.ph/cardis/SP138169.pdf">this is what we know about Jessie Javier Carlos</a>, whose attack on the Resorts World resulted in scores dead of suffocation from the fires he set off in the casino. He started out as a contractual employee in the Department of Finance in 2000, becoming permanent in 2005. He was the kind of petty bureaucrat, a clerk, who figured out a way to make dishonest money by selling fake tax certificates. But he wasn’t just crooked, he was careless. Too many cars, an Innova and a Starex van. Too many properties in Tondo, Sta. Cruz, Manila and Batangas, that his government salary couldn’t possibly have made possible. His SALN proved the missing the link, and the system crushed him: he was dismissed by the Ombudsman in 2012 and the courts upheld the firing in 2015. It’s said he threatened to shoot people from the office that fired him. We also know he was a gun dealer, which raises a whole lot of questions. What has emerged is that besides having been disgraced, he also buried himself in debt due to gambling and <a href="http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/05/17/look-gunman-banned-from-casinos-a-month-before-attack">got himself banned from casinos</a>. Beyond these details, there remains much to learn. This is a long-form investigative piece begging to be written. The first question an enterprising reporter might want to ask is, to what category should this type of incident be assigned?We are familiar with violent and often lethal Martilyo Gang type robberies, but those are brazen group robberies; the Resorts World tragedy might better belong to what could be called the Lone Desperado Robbery Gone Wrong type of crime –spectacular and ill-fated. The closest comparison that occurred to most people was with the sheer lunacy of the ill-fated robbery by Reginald Chua of a Philippine Airlines flight from Davao on May 25, 2000. Chua put on a blue ski mask, grabbed a stewardess, declared “this is a holdup,” forced his way into the cockpit, demanded they return to Davao and then, when the pilots said they lacked the fuel to return, proceeded to demand that all the passengers give him their jewelry and cash. Then he ordered the flight to descend, had a cabin door opened, and leaped out. His home-made parachute failed to open and as then PNP Chief Panfilo Lacson put it, he made a hole so deep only his hands stuck out. To the extent that Chua fired a shot and no one got hurt, and that he attempted a robbery, the craziness of his robbery could match that of Carlos. Except Carlos started fires that ended up suffocating panic-stricken employees and guests of Resorts World, while a shoot-out ended up wounding Carlos who allegedly then shot himself.To wrap our heads around this incident, which says so much about so many things, from criminality in bureaucracy, to the price of gambling addiction, to access to high-powered firearms for civilians, to the official response and investigation and the culpability of the casino’s management –all these end up leading to the story of one person and the many factors that made him do what he did.<div>Maybe three novelists, and a psychologist, can help.</div>The first novelist would be Nick Joaquin, who’s centennial the nation marks this year, aside from being the father of Tropical Baroque and a beloved novelist, was also a gifted reporter who once told me he was proudest of his crime stories. You can still find <a href="http://www.philstar.com/young-star/552580/pop-crimes-quijano-de-manilas-reportage-crime">“Reportage on Crime: Thirteen Crime Stories that Hit the Headlines”</a> in bookstores. Joaquin explored what made the criminals in his reports tick –how they thought, and what made them do what they did.The second novelist would be James Hamilton-Paterson’s novel <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-review-gouging-out-hells-entrails-ghosts-of-manila-james-hamilton-paterson-jonathan-cape-pounds-1420229.html">“Ghosts of Manila,”</a> which zeroes in on a concept we’ve contributed to the English language –running amok. This is the kind of murder very familiar to us: the person who can’t take it anymore, and suddenly, violently, blindly, lashes out with knife or gun in a berserker rampage. This leads to a necessary question: what of running amok, not as sudden flash of rage, but long-standing simmering rage and desperation? Is there such a thing as running amok as slow-burn?The third novelist would be F.H. Batacan and her novel <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/too-much-light/#!">“Smaller and Smaller Circles,”</a> which is actually <a href="https://sohopress.com/the-story-behind-f-h-batacans-smaller-and-smaller-circles/">two novels</a>, the original prize-winning one and the extended version published abroad. Her book focused on a longstanding claim that here, in the Philippines, we don’t have serial killers. Her novel is based on the premise that much as people might think this, it probably isn’t true. There are serial killers. For our purposes, a person plotting a revenge theft, involving an automatic weapon and arson–surely if any deaths ensue, as they did, because of mass panic, then the instigator is culpable because of the circumstances he unleashed?<div>This is where the psychologist enters the picture.</div>Back in <a href="http://www.quezon.ph/2007/04/23/the-explainer-point-and-click/">2007</a>, I interviewed Dr. Carlo Banaag when this was still a show and not a segment. Our topic then was Seung-Hui Cho and his murder of 33 people. Along the way we tackled the question that preoccupied Batacan’s novel: could it be true there’s no such thing as a Filipino serial killer? Banaag’s answer was interesting, not least because it wasn’t categorical. What he pointed out was the type of premeditated murder that Filipinos tend to commit. Essentially, Dr. Banaag suggested we are, culturally, a passive-aggressive people who dislike confrontation. So, the murder we like to commit is non-confrontational because poison is the preferred means. Which suggests in turn we could have serial killers, and that probability suggests if we do, they’d be poisoners instead of axe murders.This is not to excuse Carlos in any way, but his grudge was against the casino establishment: he wanted to rob it, and he inflicted violence on its premises the same way a sadistic killer would slash and stab a person he hated. What then to make of Jessie Javier Carlos? Did he run amok? What transpired suggests planning. He may have snapped, but he did some planning –though not enough as it turned out, because despite getting his loot, he took so long that a gun battle ensued, wounding him.So this is why a long investigate report is in order, and not just by the authorities. The psychology of the slow burn, the ever-tightening net around a sometime crook and gambler. Just as the deaths at Resort World have struck home for all who knew the victims, the story of this deranged man sends a chill down our collective spine: because it may well be, there are more people like him than we like to think.

Just as the deaths at Resort World have struck home for all who knew the victims, the story of this deranged man sends a chill down our collective spine: because it may well be, there are more people like him than we like to think.

Just as the deaths at Resort World have struck home for all who knew the victims, the story of this deranged man sends a chill down our collective spine: because it may well be, there are more people like him than we like to think.