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"ICU patients always died in the same bed on Sundays at 11 a.m., regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors. No one could solve the mystery. Mr. Licauco and the Ateneo paranormal folks were called. They arrived armed with special photographic equipment, infrared devices and motion sensitive radar to detect any presence, so on Sunday, a few minutes before 11 a.m., doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to know what the mystery was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses and prayer books to ward off evil spirits. "When the clock struck 11, Mang Jose, a part-time Sunday janitor, entered the room, unplugged the life support system and plugged in the vacuum cleaner." |
Ateneo paranormal folks. I don't know about them.
I RECENTLY got a text message titled ?Mystery at a Medical Center? from a well known ophthalmologist. The message read: ICU patients always died in the same bed on Sundays at 11 a.m., regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors. No one could solve the mystery. Mr. Licauco and the Ateneo paranormal folks were called. They arrived armed with special photographic equipment, infrared devices and motion sensitive radar to detect any presence, so on Sunday, a few minutes before 11 a.m., doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to know what the mystery was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses and prayer books to ward off evil spirits. I replied to the female ophthalmologist who had sent me the text, ?I didn?t know that story is still being circulated around.? I explained to her that the joke first appeared on the Internet maybe five years ago in the US. It carried names of well-known American parapsychologists. Somebody had forwarded to me a copy of that Internet joke. Soon it was used by compilers of a bestselling series of pamphlets on ?True Philippine Ghost Stories.? But they changed the name of the American hospital to Makati Medical Center and the names of the parapsychologists to sometimes Jaime Bulatao or Tony Perez and the spirit questors and myself. I thought the story had died a natural death. But many years later, I found out it is still very much alive, this time in text jokes. I am simply amused by such stories and hope people see the obvious jest. Strangers But urban legends apparently die hard. And some have been going on about me without my knowledge. I am usually the last to know. For example, I bumped into a group of strangers coming out of a Greenbelt restaurant years ago. One of them recognized me and greeted. ?Do you remember me?? he asked. I apologized and said, ?No I?m sorry, but I don?t.? He then told me he could not forget meeting me in a restaurant three months before former Sen. Ninoy Aquino came back to the Philippines. He said that I told him and six other people that if Ninoy came back to the Philippines, he would be assassinated. I said that?I asked incredulously. Yes,he emphatically replied. There were six of us who heard you say that. ?I?m sorry.? I told him. ?I don?t remember having said that.? And then I walked away from them. I learned from my son Jolan Alexander, now a businessman, that he had been told the story on two separate occasions that I once hit a baseball so hard it flew high up in the sky and was never recovered. When Jolan told me about that, I merely laughed because I have never played baseball, not even in my dreams! Relieved Here?s another recent example which took place only months ago. I went to a medical doctor who was a practitioner of holistic medicine and Chinese acupuncture. There was a female patient in the treatment room. When we were introduced, she said she knew me; we were neighbors in same office building in Makati. She said she was then scheduled for operation for cancer and I supposedly told her not to undergo the operation because she didn?t need it. Because of my advice. she said she didn?t undergo the operation. ?And what happened?? I nervously asked. ?You were right!? she replied. ?It turned out I didn?t need the operation after all.? I was relieved but at the same time puzzled because I would never tell anyone, specially someone I hardly know, not to undergo a medical surgery. I don?t remember that incident at all. But she was very sure that conversation took place in that building. Maybe that was another urban legend that has developed around my persona or character. I?ve been told that some people say I can read minds, tell the future, heal the sick and talk to the dead. If I could do all those things, I probably would have a long line of people waiting outside my door. I don?t know how many others are being circulated that I am not aware of. |
