Tonight I weep.......
Few days ago, I read in the local newspaper about a family driven into financial desperations, resorted to commit suicides. The story does have an impact on my mental well being. I felt sad and at the same time a sense of indignation. I tried to brush it off as a normal happening of this sickening society, but the images of these three beautiful boys lingered in my mind.....With a heavy heart filled with sorrows and sadness, I take note that, three innocent and beautiful boys were murdered by their own parents. The three boys, Siew Cheung (12), Siew Man (10), and Siew Tong (8) were poisoned by their parents on Friday December 1st 2006. Subsequently, their parents, Seah Wong Chong and Kau Mei Lin committed suicides by slashing their wrists. However, Seah and Kau weree lucky to be discovered and their lives were saved by the city police. Seah (38) is a tour bus driver and Kau (38) is a hawker.
According to the local news reports, Seah and Kau have financial problems and resorted to borrow money from loan sharks. When they are unable to make the commitment to pay, the loan sharks harassed and intimidated them. It is indeed very sad that, when they are unable to take the pressures, they resorted to murder their own children and later attempted to commit suicides.
As a parent myself, I know how hard it is to lose your own child. I really don't know what is the states of the mind of Seah and Kau to be so heartless to terminate the innocent lives of their three beautiful children. There is a Chinese saying that "A ferocious a tiger will never devour its own offspring". Even animal respects the sanctity of the lives of their offspring. But we are not animals, what triggered the human minds into this barbaric insanity ?
I do not wish to judge Seah and Kau. I know they have been driven into temporary insanity to commit this inhumane crime. To judge them now is to add salts to their wounds. As a parent, I know their wounds will never heals and will forever bleeds in their hearts till they breathed their last breaths.
As usual, we consoled ourselves by saying that, there is a lesson to be learned here. But what lessons are we going to learn from this human tragedy ? Of course, it is easy to say that we should not resort to borrow money from loan sharks. But let us take a minute to consider this righteous proposition. Just closed your eyes and imagined. Supposed you are Seah, in an unenviable situation of being a marginalized minority, you have no stable jobs and you are not qualified to secure any small loans from legitimate financial institutions. But you still have to keep your family going. Who else can you turn to for financial help ? The government ? the MCA ? Seah did what he did, his only mean is to seek the help of loan sharks. But loan sharks are not charitable organizations, these loan sharks are barbarically creative when come to recovering their loans. As a result, Seah paid a heavy price for his mistake.
Do victims like Seah and Kau has a fair avenue to resolve their financial problems ? Would they be able to obtain help from the government ? If they have approached the MCA before they resort to this insanity, would Datuk Michael Chong help them to minimize their financial desperations ? If they seek help from their friends and relatives, would they be able to secure some small loans to tie over the bad times ? Honestly, I don't think they are able to get any help ?
I remembered, many years ago, when my son was less than 2 years old, and I was without a job and no money to buy foods for the next day, all my supposedly good friends deserted me. They avoided me because they are so afraid I may borrowed money from them. I seeked help from the church, but was chased out by the pastor because he thought I am too lazy to work. Honestly, at that time, I have a small life insurance policy, I actually wrote a small note to my wife and planned to commit suicide. But I was lucky then, in my last day wondering around the town looking for the best venue to make my grand exit, I bumped into a long lost friend whom I loaned him some money many years back. I told him my predicaments without telling him my intention to commit suicide. This friend bought me the best lunch, and later took me to his bank in Beach street and withdraw some money ( I believe he withdrawn all his money) from his account and passed it to me. With the small sum of money, I came down to Kuala Lumpur and never look back then.
The point here is, life is tough. I empathized with Seah and Kau for their financial predicaments. They are not criminals, they needed a short break but are unable to get any. Luck was not with them. Indirectly, they have been driven into insanity to commit barbaric murdering of their own lovely sons. Honestly, look around you, did you see some familiar faces in financial troubles ? Have you offer to help in sincerity ?
Politicians are good at making their righteous statements with no concrete actions, and they are only good at paying last respects to to the deads. Believe it or not, 80% of the Malaysians resorted to loan sharks are the Chinese. And there has been too many incidents of human tragedies resulted from the immoral intimidations and harassments of loan sharks. There will never be any ending to these human tragedies as long as we are only good at paying last respects.
Sincerely, I do hope, with all the sinful taxes collected, the government and political parties can set up a fund to help all needy Malaysian irregardless of race and religion. I do hope, all of us can be a bit more sensitive to our friends and relatives who is in need of help.
We have a pair of ears, a pair of eyes, and one mouth. Human tragedies can be avoided if all of us can speak less but listen and see doubly hard to be sensitive and help people in need.
To Seah and Kau, your lovely sons do not deserved to die and you have no right to take their lives away. I sincerely pray to God that the almighty forgive your sins and allowed you to start life afresh. To Siew Cheung , Siew Man, and Siew Tong, life has never been fair to you, I pray that the kind angels shall take good care of you in the beautiful garden of God. May God bless your souls, and may you all rest in peace.
Om Namo Amithaba Buddha.
3 comments:
His three sons are dead, yet he declares...
I've no regrets
03 Dec 2006
Fadhal Ilahi Abdul Ghani
KUALA LUMPUR: Seah Wong Chong does not regret killing his three sons with rat poison on Friday.
Neither is he remorseful over the suicide attempt by him and his wife, Kau Mei Lin, immediately after the children passed out.
The 38-year-old tour bus driver said he and and his wife were forced to take the drastic measure after encountering problems, including those involving finance and debts with Ah Long.
"I gave my children poison until they became unconscious. I was forced to take this action as other family members could not help me resolve my problems," he told a reporter from a Chinese daily at the Hospital University Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM).
Wong Chong claimed he had only borrowed several thousand ringgit from an Ah Long and not RM150,000 as had been reported.
In Friday’s incident, Wong Chong and Kau tried to commit suicide by releasing the contents of a gas cylinder in their bedroom.
But in her last conscious moments, Kau telephoned the Salak South police station to say that her sons had consumed bleach.
Police, who traced the call to the 14th floor unit of the Seri Puteri Apartments in Desa Petaling, found Siew Cheung, 12, Siew Man, 10, and Siew Tong, eight, dead on their parents’ bed.
They sent the couple to HUKM where they are reported to be in stable condition.
Wong Chong, who has been remanded with his wife, pleaded with police for permission to see Kau at the hospital and the bodies of his children.
He also wants to attend the cremation of his sons.
Wong Chong’s mother, who declined to be identified, said she was not allowed to see her son.
She added Wong Chong, the youngest of four siblings, was not a gambler.
The woman, in her 70s, said Wong Chong and Kau never talked about their problems with other family members.
"There is no point in claiming the bodies yet as all cremation centres are fully booked. We will try to do it today."
Kau’s mother, Lau Kam Moi, who lives three units away from her daughter’s unit, was shocked by the turn of events.
"They are not close to us but have come several times to ask us for money."
Kau’s younger brother, Hong Kok, said he last saw Wong Chong’s family on Wednesday when they had lunch together.
Meanwhile, police are investigating to see if Ah Long were involved in the case.
Early investigations revealed no documents linking the illegal money lenders to the incident.
A post-mortem yesterday confirmed that the three children had died after consuming rat poison.
Lawyer in cahoots with Ah Long
03 Dec 2006
A LAWYER has been making a tidy income drawing up sale and purchase agreements for loan sharks.
Rather than just demanding their ATM cards and bank passbooks as security, Ah Long are forcing borrowers to sign S&P agreements on their houses, cars and anything else they think would be good collateral.
The lawyer has drawn up hundreds of these agreements — for a fee — buying a fancy sports car with the proceeds.
The head of the MCA Public Services and Complaint Department Datuk Michael Chong said: "The loan shark holds onto the S&P agreement and sells off the collateral if the borrower fails to settle the loan."
Chong said his department’s head of legal advisers, Datuk Theng Book, told him about the lawyer who was struck off by the Bar Council last month and is no longer allowed to practise.
"The lawyer’s activities came to light after customers reported that their collateral was sold off even though they had settled their loans," he said.
The loan-sharking business is growing fast. Last year, his department received 280 complaints involving 1,688 Ah Long. The loans amounted to more than RM18 million. Up to November this year, there were 451 complaints about 3,749 loan sharks involving more than RM46 million, he said.
Eighty per cent of the borrowers who sought help from his department were gamblers. The rest needed small business loans or money for an emergency.
He added that after a request from Bukit Aman, he has agreed to give police a list of aggressive Ah Long whom he has received complaints about.
On the recent family tragedy in which parents Seah Wong Chong and Kau Mei Lin poisoned their three sons and tried to kill themselves due to problems with loan sharks, he said his department would pay the funeral expenses for the three boys.
"It is sad the parents didn’t approach us earlier. We could have helped them," he said.
yup, it's so sickening to know that how and what some people would do at times of desperation.
i too in deep financial s**t, but still, one should be responsible to his/her own action, be a HUMAN n find solutions!
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