The Death of The Haunted

LONE WOLF Lolong at his pen

The heart is a lonely hunter---Carson McCullers

He died. A month before that, a foreign object was lounging in his system, a nylon cord found in his feces. Somehow a painful ordeal he had to through before probably succumbing to it. Some say he died out of sheer loneliness, away from his home, from his natural habitat. 

For sixteen months he was the toast of a town coming out of obscurity, a town that was suddenly thrust into the limelight solely from his enormity and entertainment value. But he was suffering underneath the hoopla of being the world’s largest, a characteristic that has its curse and a commercial chip attached to it. Until he died, and his loss is as big as when he arrived at the scene.

When “Lolong”, that 20.3 foot (6.17 m) saltwater crocodile, was captured two years ago in Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, it immediately struck a personal chord with the townsfolk. The dread of Lolong, who, a few days before that, allegedly gobbled a water buffalo, was replaced by an effort to save the hapless crocodile from returning to the marsh where he was captured. He was then placed in an eco-tourism park for all to see. People from all walks of life came in bunches and marvel at him, including representatives from the Guinness World Records. Bunawan, suddenly, was placed on the map, as if it hadn’t existed before Lolong’s capture. And by merely looking at the sight of an enormous creature, the town became one of the few tourist destinations in the province of Agusan del Sur.

All that changed when news of Lolong’s death came Sunday evening. It was as if the whole town went out of breath and died instantly. A few months before that, however, experts who were hired to monitor the famed crocodile said that Lolong was showing signs of stress, and as a result, his eating habits were affected. Conditions of the weather were also taken into consideration, particularly at the wake of Typhoon Bopha (Pablo), were Bunawan has had its own share of damages and devastation, and probably contributed to the severity of Lolong’s condition. A noticeable bulging, nonetheless, was seen on his belly believed to be bothering him prior to his death, and a plastic fishing cord allegedly severing his digestive system probably did him in.

But a few concerned citizens suggested otherwise. Lolong’s death was far from being biological, it was something personal. Advocacy groups, since his capture, lobbied for his return to Agusan Marsh. They said that Lolong’s irregular eating habit has something to do with his change of environment and that the croc obviously is adjusting poorly to his new home. And while investors in the northern part of the country were eyeing for Lolong’s transfer to a much-better facility; and that Bunawan Mayor Edwin Elorde remained staunch in his belief that Bunawan, through his eco-tourism park, is the best place for Lolong, the croc was probably thinking of somewhere else.

It was a risk on the part of Elorde. Bunawan was caught in a wave of frenzy following Lolong’s capture. And the local government immediately took matters into its own hands, so to speak, by claiming Lolong as one of their own, mostly for sentimental reasons. The history of crocodile attacks in that side of the province was tinged with a lot of shrouds, that when news of Lolong’s capture spread through the town like some wild forest fire, somehow the mystery surrounding this beast in the marsh had been solved, it’s constant fear vanished, and by all means a victory for the local folks over years of hunting the elusive crocodile. And it was only through Lolong that the town has had its share of prestige and popularity they so probably craved, and Elorde knows this too well, even if it means apportioning a handsome sum from his office just so to keep this creature under wraps and under his care. But it was a move that runs counter to what Lolong had in mind.

Lolong took its name from a local crocodile Dundee, Ernesto “Lolong” Conate, who suffered a heart attack in the midst of chasing that famed crocodile. Nobody remembers Ernesto anymore, but everybody is akin to its famous counterpart. Perhaps it was in the best of intentions that Elorde decided to keep Lolong at his side “like a son”, and under the ogling eyes of the public, but like Ernesto, he was probably chasing nothing in return, like chasing a prodigal son in Lolong. Although the beast was under the care of some local officials and croc experts, and generating at least P20,000 a day of gate receipts, which somehow made a living in a sleepy town like Bunawan, but Lolong, suffering a sort of “separation anxiety”, was far from being home. The irony being is that Lolong’s presence enabled the local government to cash in abundantly even at the expense of the croc’s discomfort and digestive system in the end.   

It would be quite risky though to return Lolong to its natural ways when he was still alive, owing to those incidents of decapitation involving the likes of him, but that’s where Lolong should be, in the first place, even after his capture, and not in some makeshift park or to the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife (NAPW) compound in Quezon City, facilities that are short of imprisonment for the gentle giant. The speculation that Lolong died of severe loneliness and want (his strained digestive system circumstantial), that he was simply maladjusted to his new environment, and the stress that goes with it, may just be innuendos of a much bigger problem than the actual cause of his death. He was probably tormented at the thought of spending the rest of his life for public consumption instead of living privately at his own natural home. Lolong died long before he did. A haunted hunter.