DIALOGUE : Thoughts on the Ampatuan massacre

Too long we have lived in this surreal society, where the rich and powerful preying on the poor and the weak claim to be friends and champions. We learned to deny our misfortune and discovered that the pen is a mirror we can hold away from us and toward those we wished to imagine had luck far worse than ours. Heady were the plaudits, the applause of the world that regarded our efforts to tell these stories. Headier still the rare instances we truly believed our words, our phrases, and our accounts had the might to change the fate of the damned. Brave, unconquerable, the press that was free. Till one day in November, we rushed to that windswept hill, where the tall, proud, untamed grass bowed to the weight of a humungous yellow backhoe. Death. Everywhere death. Our fellows buried under disheveled earth and stone.

Psyche

Did we not allow you to take pictures and videos of the bloated, bullet-smashed bodies and heads; to record intimately the sobs of those grieving husbands and wives, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers; to post their anguish in a thousand and one sites for the world to see, hear, and commiserate with? Did we not take in stride the vilifying news reports, the sarcastic phrases, the caustic comments vented on a clan that has served us well? Is this not proof of our noble allegiance to fairness, objectivity, and the freedom of the press?

Maybe, you thought this would be like any other controversy. Two weeks, a month, a month-and-a-half at most, and then the public will forget. Just like the heinous goings on in your political scandals that have become too numerous and too frequent to be all committed to memory. You gamble on the premise that the public has a short attention span and that two minutes after the present is too long to remember for most. Did you plan this? Is this the first of more to come?

Benefit of the doubt. That is all we ask, for now. And you will give us that. By your profession, you are hand-tied to your ethics to report faithfully what is transpiring before you. We cried: “Justice!” as loudly as you did. Write that. We embraced the political foe of the clan you accuse of perpetrating the crime. Put that in the news. He who has been tagged as the chief perpetrator, we incarcerated. Be present to broadcast his ignominy, his glassy stare, and his penchant for soothing balms. Heck, we even allowed you to manhandle him. Oh, and don’t forget the circuitous rebellion charges. The legalese can be tricky and your reports are becoming hazy. Go back and forth. Back and forth, you with the taste for scoops. Chase our statements, now here, now there. Did you get them all? We claim the days for our own. We wait. It is December and Christmas comes, pouring tinsel and good tidings to this gore and gloom you fight so hard to keep in the public eye. And when the last tinsel has been shorn, lo and behold, we have the elections and the circus has really come to town.

Candles. Let us light candles. There, where we found them, let us walk. The pictures. Let us place the candles next to the pictures. BENJIE… RUBELLO… JHOY… RONNIE… It is difficult to persist. I have deadlines to meet. HENRY… MAC-MAC… Light that candle again, please. Take care the wind. JOLITO… VICTOR… DANIEL… I will place the flowers here. ARTURO… JOHN… NOEL… REY… Threats, we are receiving threats. They say a witness has been killed. RANNY… JIMMY… It’s been five months, how long do we have to wait? BEBOT… MARITES… ROSEL… We will not stop. We will not forget. HANNIBAL…LEA… Do you know her? GINA… NENENG… SANTOS… We will not forget. BIENVENIDO… JOEL… Tomorrow. LINDO… BART… Tomorrow we will go to Mendiola. BONG… NAPOLEON… IAN… ANDY… We are coming to claim our dead from the hyena mimicking our sorrow and disbelief.

=================================

Also Read:
Statement of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility on the Agra order to drop the multiple murder charges against Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Governor Zaldy Ampatuan Zaldy and Mamasapano Mayor Datu Akmad Ampatuan in connection with the Ampatuan Massacre posted in this link