Stranger than fiction

Truth is stranger than fiction, that is why fictionists mine reality for materials for their works. A website I stumbled into, ba-bamail. com, even went as far as posting 29 facts that show that, again, truth is stranger than fiction. One fact I like: “Before mating, the female giraffe will first urinate in the male’s mouth.” I still have to see a video clip of giraffes doing that, though.

My award-winning short fiction “Ang mga Langgam-Langgam” about a daughter who killed her abusive father, was based on a true incident. I say the story of Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel, although not really that strange, can be interesting for fictionists. I am particularly drawn by its tragic turn: a woman giving up a career as a pilot for wedded bliss, becoming mayor of a small town in a rustic province and ending up being slain, her body thrown into the sea.

But let me digress. I remember a conversation I had years ago with one who presented himself as an “expert” in “pagbato-bato,” the Cebuano term for the act of weighing a body down with rocks so it won’t float when thrown into the sea. He said a body bloats several hours after death and thus floats in water. It can be weighed down with rocks. Still, it could float if the rocks are not heavy enough.

One reason why the body floats, he said, is the bloating of the torso, especially in the stomach area that lightens up like a balloon. The solution, the “expert” claimed, is to slash open the stomach before the weighed down body is thrown into the sea. I don’t really know if what he said was true but the conversation we had was hair-raising, at least for me, that’s why I remember it.

Why am I writing about this? The testimony of boatman Riolito “Etad” Boniel was that after Gisela was shot, her body was wrapped with a fishing net and weighed down with rocks then thrown in the sea near Lapu-Lapu City.

But how heavy were those rocks and could these have prevented the body from floating when it bloated considering that the process in “pagbato-bato” that the “expert” I conversed with suggested years ago was not followed? The body may not have floated all the way to the surface but it could have so lightened enough for the current to carry it away from its original position. Could the advise of one knowledgeable on the undercurrent in the area help in the search?

Back to Gisela’s story. I could just imagine how she must have felt when her marriage became problematic and she was in a place where she was virtually a stranger? I understand Gisela was not a native of Bohol nor of Bien Unido where she was mayor. Bien Unido is the territory of her husband, whose family controls the town’s politics. It must have become a lonely existence for her before she died.

On the other hand, how can Gisela’s husband, Niño Rey Boniel, could have done what he was accused of, granting that the allegations against him is true? How can somebody of his stature—he is a Provincial Board member, be linked to such a dastardly crime that was obviously roughly done? What was the motivation, again if the accusation is true?

Tragedies like this won’t grow old in the retelling.