It’s a Massacre

I know I’m relatively young. Maybe I have much to learn about history which is not printed in textbooks. But never had I witnessed such mockery of procedures, of history, and by so doing, shamelessly trample a nation and its people. The worse part of it all is that the very people of this nation execute this mockery. The even worse part of it is that some citizens seem to consent to it. Wait, there’s more. The even worse part of it is more and more people consent and support this contempt; and are so passionate about it.

Sometimes, I pause and think to myself, “wait a minute; am I the one detached from reality?”. Am I naïve in supposing that candidate substitutions are reserved for unexpected inabilities to continue the campaign, like death. Well, at least, that’s what I think. I presume, at least, some people would agree. In a TV interview, Lakas CMD Secretary General Prospero Pichay explained the filing of COC’s of his not so popular partymates for the positions of president and vice president as a strategy like playing a game of chess. So, that’s what it is now; or maybe that’s what it has been all along. So much for public service, it’s all about a game of kings and queens that use knights and bishops to sacrifice pawns to gain power. People in power play us like a chess board on which pawns on the other side are swallowed and eaten to protect their “king”, whoever or whatever that is.

It’s a massacre, a massacre of integrity, a massacre of uprightness.

“In late January, a land dispute between two relatives in Papua New Guinea’… province turned deadly. According to a journalist who investigated the incident, twenty-one were killed, including two teenage girls and their mother. Some of the victims were beheaded and had their limbs cut off.

In Papua New Guinea’s highlands, land and family disputes have long turned into deadly feuds between men. But increasingly, women and children are targeted.

In July 2019, fighters killed at least ten women, two pregnant, and six children in… All were hacked to death.

At the time, …who hails from the area, promised to “come after” those responsible.

Yet, since the massacre, at least four new massacres have taken place in… and neighboring… province and the government has taken no demonstrable steps to arrest or prosecute those responsible.

In December 2019, seven were reportedly killed in fighting in…province. A month later fighting between two clans in… killed four men and injured women and children, who were slashed with knives. In March 2020, another ten were reportedly killed in… including 3 children aged 5 and 6.

The latest killings in January took place in an easily accessible area of… a mere 20 minutes’ drive from… , the provincial capital. (Pednault, Jonathant. 2019. Bring Highland Killers in Papua New Guinea to Justice retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/07/bring-highland-killers-papua-new-guinea-justice#:~:text=In%20Papua%20New%20Guinea’s%20highlands,All%20were%20hacked%20to%20death.)

Does that sound familiar? Those incidents did not occur in the Philippines, but it could very well have. While googling for similar incidents, the Philippines stood out with the Marawi and Digos massacres.

Picture a young male child who would not talk, and would not remove his two palms from covering his ears, who would go in hysterical panic at the drop of a pin. I could only hope with a deep sigh of breath, and pray with the deepest prayers that he would grow up, move on and turn such an experience to positive directions.

I understand the trauma, the stress, the scars after witnessing and surviving the violent and brutal barrage of gun shots and explosions that claimed deaths of cousins. I understand the difficulties of a child after having gone through such merciless bloodshed.

But what I don’t understand is how a human being could blow up the innards of innocent young children with the utmost intent to make cadavers of their living bodies. What I don’t understand is how some people, regardless of status in society, could go to lengths to protect the perpetrator. What I don’t understand is how officers in authority could muster the courage to comply in a code of silence, presumably in abeyance of reason and justice, in supposed reverence for some higher power. What I don’t understand is how kings, queens, bishops, knights and towers could twist procedures and history itself for movements to maintain power.

“Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE REFUSED TO BE COMFORTED, BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE.”” Matthew 2:18