*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
My daughter Juliana and I recently sat together one evening, watching Gone Girl on DVD bought from Segunda Mana. It was not meant to be a lesson, just a quiet moment between a father and a child, the kind where the world pauses for a while. The film, released in 2014 and led by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, unfolded slowly—too slowly, perhaps—until the truth became unbearable. A woman had staged her own death, and the world mourned her with sincerity, with outrage, and with certainty. What stayed with me was not the twist, but the ease with which death silenced doubt. Once people believed she was gone, questions felt almost immoral. To ask was to disturb the dead.
When the movie ended, my daughter was quiet. I was quieter. Because fiction, when it is honest, mirrors something we refuse to see in real life: that death, real or imagined, has the power to end not only life but also inquiry.
In criminology, there is a cold word for this: pseudocide. Fake death. It sounds clinical, almost harmless. But behind it lies a devastating truth. When someone pretends to die, it is not merely an escape from life; it is an escape from consequence. It is the most extreme way of saying, “I will not answer.” In our legal system, death extinguishes criminal liability. The case stops. The files are closed. The questions lose their teeth. And so, for those who fear accountability more than disappearance, death becomes tempting—not as an end, but as a shield.
Real-life fake deaths are rarely dramatic. They are quiet, almost respectful. No blood, no noise, sometimes no body. Just absence. Silence. And the hope that silence will be mistaken for truth. But silence is never empty. It is filled with things we choose not to pursue.
If there is such a thing as a fake death, then we must face a more painful realization: death can be used to free not only the one who disappears, but those who remain behind the curtain. When a key figure is declared dead—rightly or wrongly—cases weaken. Threads go cold. Witnesses hesitate. Beneficiaries breathe easier. The dead can no longer testify, no longer contradict, and no longer confess. In that moment, death becomes the perfect accomplice. It protects not just one person but an entire web of responsibility that suddenly has no center.
We have seen this pattern across borders. In the United Kingdom, John Darwin faked his death in 2002, disappearing into the sea while his family and the state mourned him. Insurance claims were paid. Life moved on. For years, the lie held. Until it didn’t. When the truth surfaced, the punishment was heavier than anything he had tried to escape. His fake death did not free him—it branded him. It taught the world that lies age poorly, and death borrowed too long always demands interest.
In the United States, Nicholas Rossi was believed dead, memorialized online, and erased from pursuit. But he resurfaced, very much alive, still running from serious accusations. His supposed death did not save him. It exposed him. The lie about death became proof of guilt, not innocence. Across continents, the story repeats: fake death delays justice, but it also sharpens it.
Closer to home, the case of Mary Ann Maslog reminds us that the same darkness exists here. Facing trial for the DepEd textbook scam, she vanished. Whispers of death circulated. Had they been true, the case would have died quietly. But she was alive—hiding, assuming names, and evading responsibility. Her borrowed death did not protect her. It condemned her further. The law waited. And when it caught up, it did not forget.
Yet what unsettles me most is not the act of fake death itself, but what grows around real deaths. In our country, conspiracy theories bloom easily after the passing of powerful figures. Not always because there is evidence—but because there is exhaustion. A deep, collective fatigue from scandals that fade, cases that stall, and truths that never fully surface. When people stop believing that justice survives power, even death becomes suspicious.
This was the quiet storm that followed the death of DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral. Some whispered. Some speculated. Some asked questions that had no answers. Let me say this with care and fairness: there is no judicial finding, no verified evidence, and no official determination that her death was faked or manipulated. None. And still, doubt lingered. Not because of her alone—but because of where she worked and what that institution represents in the public imagination.
The Department of Public Works and Highways carries a heavy shadow. Massive budgets. Visible failures. And, more recently, public anger fueled by the flood control scandal—projects meant to protect communities, yet often remembered only when the floods return. In that context, death is no longer just grief. It becomes a question mark. People ask who benefits, not out of malice, but out of learned disappointment.
This is not an accusation against the dead. It is a confession about the living. About how little trust remains. About how easily we slip from demanding accountability to accepting disappearance.
Legally, the truth is simple. Rumors do not matter. Speculation has no weight. Death must be proven. If death is real, the law moves on. If death is false, the law strikes harder. Courts are patient. They wait longer than public outrage ever will.
But society is not a court. Society remembers differently. It grows tired. It learns to live with unanswered questions. And that is the most dangerous outcome of all.
As my daughter and I turned off the DVD player that night, I felt a quiet fear—not of fake deaths, but of forgotten truths. Of a future where we stop asking not because we are satisfied, but because we are weary. Where death, real or imagined, becomes a convenient ending to stories that should never have ended that way.
Movies fade to black. Real life does not. In real life, unanswered questions accumulate like unclaimed bodies of truth. And if we ever reach the point where death—any death—automatically ends our demand for justice, then the greatest loss will not be the person we buried, but the truth we chose not to pursue.
Because when that happens, death no longer marks the end of life.
It marks the end of courage.
*About the author:
