AS THE death toll continues to rise in the ongoing war on drugs, a group of Manila and Baguio-based writers, photographers and artists are holding a poetry reading-cum-photo presentation on November 3 at Mount Cloud in Casa Vallejo, Baguio City.
Titled “Ghost Readings,” the event is both an offering and lamentation for the thousands killed in the war against illegal drugs.
As of October 24, 1, 711 “drug personalities” have been killed during police operations. Another 3,001 were killed by unknown suspects and have been classified as “deaths under investigation” (DUI).
Among those reading their poems and prose are Ubbog, Baguio Writers Group and Monday Cloud poets.
Manila-based photojournalist Mark Saludes and other photojournalists will be showing some of the photos they took of the casualties, both of the police operations and of suspected vigilantes and drug lords.
Also, in commemoration of the seventh year of the Ampatuan Massacre, a poem reading session on “The Haunting of Ampatuan” is slated.
Members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines Baguio-Benguet chapter will read the poems of Baguio writers Luchie Maranan, Frank Cimatu and Desiree Caluza-Cruz on the Ampatuan massacre.
The Ampatuan Massacre where 58 people --- 32 of whom were journalists --- were systematically murdered en masse allegedly by a Maguindanao warlord. The journalists were part of the convoy covering the filing of candidacy of another politician.
Seven years after and justice for the victims remain elusive and the extra judicial killing of journalists still pervades the country. The poetry jam starts at 6:00 p.m. (NUJP/PR)
