Sometimes It Gets Darker

Just when you think that things are weird enough as it is, something happens to turn weird into a completely different thing.

My wife is still in the Philippines, trying to get her surgery scheduled. Since our insurance isn’t going to cover any of it, we have been going around scraping to see where we are going to find the money. I applied for a loan with one of the local banks, and we are still awaiting word on whether or not that loan is going to be approved. My wife has also been looking around to see if she can find some money there as well.

Because of this, the wife has been stressing out pretty badly, and this stress has configured itself into our relationship. It used to be that we would have nice, pleasant phone conversations. Lately, she has been curt and almost unkind to me. I understand that she’s stressing, from the surgery issue, and other things, and I’m trying to be patient and understanding and do everything possible to relieve some of that stress.

The events of Monday night changed our focus completely and took things to a completely darker, evil level.

Around 8:30 Monday evening, a van pulled up in front of my brother-in-laws house, which is right next door to my mother-in-laws place. Four heavily armed men jumped out of the van, located my brother-in-law, put him in the van, and rolled away. While they were grabbing him up, some of their party pointed guns at various family members and told them to stay back.

As the van rolled away, my sister-in-law was able to get the license plate number of the van. They immediately reported what happened to the local police, the city government, and basically anyone who would listen. In the first 24 hours that he was gone, the family did everything possible, to include making posters and hanging them everywhere. Basically no one in the family slept for 24 hours, desperate to find out anything. My mother-in-law, who always viewed this son in particular as her favorite, nearly lost it completely, and had to be comforted throughout the night to remain calm.

It turns out that the van he was taken away in was stolen from a province in the northern part of Luzon. Other than that, there has been no news from any government agency. Discreet inquiries have also been made with those associated with the local criminal element, and they too have no knowledge of what happened to him.

On Wednesday, my wife and her sister contacted the local TV and newspapers as well as ABS-CBN, one of the largest TV networks in the Philippines, telling the story, hoping that they would get the word out about what happened.

It has been 72 hours since he was taken away, and so far, nothing. No word from the people who took him, and no word from the police on anything they have found out. As much as I hope he’s OK, at this point I’m afraid that he’s probably dead. It’s not like a kidnapping, where a monetary demand is made for the return of someone. My brother-in-law is poor, as is most of the family, so there really is no money to be had. It’s pretty much common knowledge there that I am what could be considered a lower middle class white guy, so I don’t have any money either.

What I am thinking is that he did something that pissed someone off so badly that they took him. A debt that no one else in the family knows about or maybe he slept with someone’s wife and the guy found out. Either way, it’s unusual even for central Luzon that something like this would happen. Usually, if you screwed someone over with a debt or sleeping with the wrong person, they just shoot you in the street or do a drive-by at your home. No, this is something totally different and more ominous.

Needless to say, my wife’s stress level is completely off the charts. I have been trying to be supportive and encouraging, but she’s definitely feeling the strain, and our conversations are usually very brief. She doesn’t have time to deal with me, and I’m trying hard to stay out of her way.

I hope that whoever took my brother-in-law brings him back in one piece, or even back a little beat up. It would be a far better thing than for him to just disappear off the earth. He has two daughters that definitely need their father back.

Sometimes when you think that shit is really bad, it gets worse.