WRONG SYSTEM : Son performs CPR on his own father while stuck on hold with 911. Ambulance arrives without an AED.

He called 911 for almost ten minutes.

No one answered.

When someone finally picked up, they told him to wait.

He could hear laughter and casual conversation in the background.

His father collapsed.

Cardiac arrest.

So the son got on the floor and started CPR himself.

He kept going.

Ribs under his hands.

Counting.

Waiting.

When the ambulance finally arrived, there was no AED.

No defibrillator.

No one immediately took over the compressions.

He was still the one doing CPR on his own father.

His father died.

Basty Askri, a nursing graduate and performer from Taguig, posted the photos the next day: his exhausted face in the hospital, and the body of his 71-year-old father covered by a white sheet on a stretcher. 

The Department of the Interior and Local Government has confirmed a call came in shortly after 12:15 p.m. on August 15 and was forwarded to the Taguig Command Center. An investigation is now underway. 

But here is the real question that should be asked — the one that matters more than any official statement:

How many more sons will have to perform CPR on their dying fathers while the national emergency hotline keeps them on hold… and the ambulance that finally arrives is missing the one device that could have restarted a heart?

This is not just one family’s tragedy.

This is the system we currently have.

And until that question is answered with action, not excuses, nothing has changed.