OVER 200 children from the two campuses of Abbas Orchard School in Cagayan de Oro City buried their Stacey on Monday underneath a sea of green and beneath a late afternoon sky at Divine Shepherd Memorial Gardens in Barangay Bulua.
Bearing white balloons with “Justice for Stacey Villar” printed on them, the children stood as one, seeking comfort in one another, as they shared memories and anecdotes before finally saying their goodbyes as the Stacey Villar, the 14-year-old 8 Grader strangled in her sleep Thursday, August 13, was laid to rest at about 5 p.m., August 17.
Classes were suspended yesterday for both the Alwana and La Granja campuses, according to school administrator Ferdinand Esguerra.
The school’s eight other campuses offered a moment of silence and prayers for Stacey Villar, who was found dead inside her bedroom in Morning Mist Village, a posh subdivision in Upper Carmen, Cagayan de Oro City.
Senseless death and violence
For many of the children, Stacey’s murder was their first encounter with senseless and violent death.
A tightly knit community with each a member of one extended family, Esguerra said the loss was especially traumatic for the children and the teachers and staff as well, an experience that need to be processed and dealt with.
“We will be having debriefing sessions for teachers and students in the next few days,” Esguerra said.
Esguerra said the debriefing sessions will be given by a psychologist who is also a parent of one the school’s students.
The circumstances of the girl’s death, murdered in her sleep inside her own bedroom, especially hit the children hard, a parent who refused to be identified said.
The parent, who has two elementary-age daughters, said the daughters, who have been sleeping in their own rooms for quite some time now, refused to sleep alone following the murder.
“They told us they were afraid,” the parent said, “They asked us what if a bad man comes while they were sleeping,” she said.
A teacher, delivering one in a string of eulogies, said Stacey’s death elicited a lot of questions from the children, questions they are hard put to provide answers to.
“It was not fair, why would someone want to harm Stacey? She was so sweet,” the teacher related the children’s common lament.
The teacher said Stacey was someone who was ready to speak her mind; polite but not afraid to say what was wrong, the embodiment of a Montessori child.
But we are hopeful, she said, that this tragedy will make the children stronger.
“The adolescent community also knows what justice means,” she said.