FIND (Families In Voluntary Disappearances)
The Mariveles Mental Ward in Bataan approached GMA Kapuso Foundation, their request was featured in 24-Oras last week. They were calling on the relatives of about 100 residents (patients) of the ward who are ready to go home but cannot because they have lost contact with their families. Letters were sent to the families at the last known addresses, some letters were returned, others were ignored.
When i was a kid and was still staying there i knew that the hospital's social worker would accompany the discharged patients back to their families to reintegrate. I can still recall that the families were always told that these patients needed their support more than ever to prevent recurrence of the illness. I suppose they still do that now but apparently only with the ones whose families did not abandon them.
It was sad to see those patients seated in rows, their faces not shown but they held pieces of paper where their names were scribbled, just first names. I remember at least two names, Andrew and Rochel. One 33 year old female from Olongapo who was found lying on a pavement in that city was brought to the ward and is now ready to go home pleaded her family to take her home.
I found something ironic in that call, i don't know if it was the network's decision or as requested by the hospital authorities that the faces were concealed. When people try to find a missing person or look for the families of a person found, they show pictures, if not available they have descriptions, so that words can travel and reach the people concerned. This one for the mental patients is different. Seated in rows all wearing pink and blue uniforms - i can excuse the gender stereotyping - and (having lived with them during my growing up years) i knew that medicines and the condition in the mental ward could alter their physical builds and make them hardly recognizable from the first day they were admitted in the ward.
I can make a wild guess why their faces were not shown, well protection of their identities and that of their families'. But what the heck are they protected from? From public humiliation? I wonder who is being protected here. These people are not criminals, these are people who need understanding, who need acceptance. All of us are in one way or another neurotic, some people are not just equipped with the faculties to balance emotions and cope with harsh realities. Maybe even some of them snapped into insanity because of severe hunger or lack of sleep or maybe they had been at one time abused and didn't have support system. But this is a mad world, anybody can go insane anytime.
I can't see why these patients who are already treated and are back to realities and therefore could make decisions for themselves would not want their faces shown on television if what they wanted was for their families to find them. I can safely assume that some of them were brought to the ward clandestinely and probably their families are telling folks they know that these patients could be vacationing or working somewhere. Some families are ignominous of the fact that a member of their family broke down and look at insanity as a dreaded disease or a curse or what have you. Some families would deliberately leave the patients in the ward and banish themselves.
Majority of these patients will not be able to go home because in the first place they are the ones whose families could no longer be located, and probably refused to be found. It's pathetic because what a mentally ill person needs is the love, care, understanding and support of the loved ones yet they they are the ones missing. Majority of them will never go home, just like the many patients i had met as a child. They'll die longing, their lives will perish and nobody will care.
I hate it when i see people mock or laugh at the mentally ill or recoil when they see a taong grasa. These are people who have created their own realities, these are people who chose to traverse the norms and enjoy the realities they have created for themselves. These are the most honest and sincerest people I have known. As the song goes, "sinong dakila, sino ang tunay na baliw?"
When i was a kid and was still staying there i knew that the hospital's social worker would accompany the discharged patients back to their families to reintegrate. I can still recall that the families were always told that these patients needed their support more than ever to prevent recurrence of the illness. I suppose they still do that now but apparently only with the ones whose families did not abandon them.
It was sad to see those patients seated in rows, their faces not shown but they held pieces of paper where their names were scribbled, just first names. I remember at least two names, Andrew and Rochel. One 33 year old female from Olongapo who was found lying on a pavement in that city was brought to the ward and is now ready to go home pleaded her family to take her home.
I found something ironic in that call, i don't know if it was the network's decision or as requested by the hospital authorities that the faces were concealed. When people try to find a missing person or look for the families of a person found, they show pictures, if not available they have descriptions, so that words can travel and reach the people concerned. This one for the mental patients is different. Seated in rows all wearing pink and blue uniforms - i can excuse the gender stereotyping - and (having lived with them during my growing up years) i knew that medicines and the condition in the mental ward could alter their physical builds and make them hardly recognizable from the first day they were admitted in the ward.
I can make a wild guess why their faces were not shown, well protection of their identities and that of their families'. But what the heck are they protected from? From public humiliation? I wonder who is being protected here. These people are not criminals, these are people who need understanding, who need acceptance. All of us are in one way or another neurotic, some people are not just equipped with the faculties to balance emotions and cope with harsh realities. Maybe even some of them snapped into insanity because of severe hunger or lack of sleep or maybe they had been at one time abused and didn't have support system. But this is a mad world, anybody can go insane anytime.
I can't see why these patients who are already treated and are back to realities and therefore could make decisions for themselves would not want their faces shown on television if what they wanted was for their families to find them. I can safely assume that some of them were brought to the ward clandestinely and probably their families are telling folks they know that these patients could be vacationing or working somewhere. Some families are ignominous of the fact that a member of their family broke down and look at insanity as a dreaded disease or a curse or what have you. Some families would deliberately leave the patients in the ward and banish themselves.
Majority of these patients will not be able to go home because in the first place they are the ones whose families could no longer be located, and probably refused to be found. It's pathetic because what a mentally ill person needs is the love, care, understanding and support of the loved ones yet they they are the ones missing. Majority of them will never go home, just like the many patients i had met as a child. They'll die longing, their lives will perish and nobody will care.
I hate it when i see people mock or laugh at the mentally ill or recoil when they see a taong grasa. These are people who have created their own realities, these are people who chose to traverse the norms and enjoy the realities they have created for themselves. These are the most honest and sincerest people I have known. As the song goes, "sinong dakila, sino ang tunay na baliw?"
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