FORTY-FOUR or 64? The social media cannot be sure. We are innumerates at this point, more than any other point in our history.
Some forty-four cops were murdered or ambushed and, if we may believe the postings, mutilated. The ordinary man and woman on the street as we are wont to call those whose voice does not matter or whose decisions do not count are running berserk. Then the social media and the formal media declared that after 24 hours, the President of this republic had not yet made any remarks. It was after those hours that the president started to deliver a speech.
The content did not make sense. The people were not demanding a blow-by-blow account of what happened in Mamasapano. Forty-four men were killed. Think of the number and think of the coffins and multiply that with the grieving families.
It is said that Sec. Manuel Roxas called the Mamasapano event a “misencounter.” If we play by number, a misencounter should not have lasted that long. Radio commentators are agreeing on this point. And if indeed there was post-death mutilation, then it could not have been a “misencounter.” That misencounter has produced 44 casualties and some critically injured and some wounded.
After deciding to finally talk, President Aquino opted to call the battle which left 44 dead a result of lack of coordination. If I were a teacher on an educational tour with about 60 students and half of them got killed, can I use the word “lack of coordination?” Perhaps, that is a lapsed comparison.
Be that as it may, how can the president, the so-called “Father of the Nation,” maintain his quiet after one or two or three or ten hours? What is happening in and between and after those hours as the nation looks at 10, then 20, then 30, then 40 deaths in the rank of our policemen.
However we hate the guts of these warriors, with their death we are left with no answers but questions about peace, and about a president who keeps quiet when the nation’s defenders are dead and when our basic concept of peace is mutilated.
This is clearly murder, this which took place in Maguindanao. From now on, if and when we talk of Maguindanao massacre, we need to do a disambiguation. There have been two massive massacres in that region the Ampatuan and this Mamasapano. Journalists were in the first and policemen were in the second. Two. Twice. The soil in that region is twice desecrated for lack of coordination.
Terrific coordination was at the core of another event. Not a massacre this time but a disappearance no less of some 500 children and their parents.
These were street children and, putatively, they disappeared during the week that Pope Francis was here. It was only after the papal visit was over that the media and other people started talking of how the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) allegedly spirited away the kids and the parents to a resort south of Manila.
Apparently, the occasion was part of the program of DSWD. As I do not have the details of the program, I like to assume that the trip and the games and the fun are part of the process by which these traumatized children are rehabilitated. A radio announced talked about how the program would make the kinds—or at least some of them—to rethink their situation. That, after enjoying the resort they would resolve not to go back to the streets anymore.
The problem with the conduct of the program is that it did not allow the children to see Pope, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. One radio commentator asked: why did DSWD not bring them to Amoranto Stadium? The announced answered his question: But that would enable them to walk back to the streets and what, embarrass the state and the church?
Besides, if indeed picnics of excursions to the resorts are part of DSWD program for street children, why hold them during the cold season? At this point, there should be taped loud laughter.
Two events: Both lacked coordination. Both events murdered people; the children were banished and disappeared for 5 days; the soldiers totally gone from this earth.
Two events: Both lacked sense of proportion, both lacked logic. Both do not make sense.
Last week, the face of Dinky Soliman was plastered all over the Internet. By the power of selection, the photo of the DSWD top official showed her with a slight glint in her eyes. There was definitely malice in the reason for choosing that photo.
Poor Dinky. But the idea of bringing street kids to a resort, away from the Pope who, as it was written, was here for the abandoned, for the destitute children is senseless and useless.
Rage was rising and the voices were calling for the resignation of Dinky Soliman. It looks like she will be saved by the bell of justice as it tolls for the demise of reason and righteousness in the land.
Massacres occur in this land too often we are not anymore shocked by.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: Jimbo Albano