THE news this week brews a storm over spilled coffee cups.
Just when the Moro people overwhelmingly voted yes for a chance for peace ahead, two bombs shattered that hope Sunday in a Jolo cathedral leaving around 20 dead and more than 70 wounded.
An MSU professor said six brigades have already been deployed in Sulu for the past five months to target Abu Sayyaf, yet bombs still went off.
Some want peace dead, and the reaction is predictable as some want more Martial Law.
Last Monday, the House approved lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12.
There are many things we wished government can lower or lessen rather than going after children. Lesser taxes (Train), traffic, flooding, corruption in high places. Go after non-functioning corrupt officials and bureaucrats sitting on their swivel chairs. Less bullets. More jobs. More housing units. More schools. More common sense.
But this is his House. A House whose speaker said shall serve what he wants. Someone forgot what democracy is.
On the same day, a House committee asked Lumad students and teachers to answer allegations they were taught to rebel. They forgot that the real harassment comes from the AFP who have red-baited teachers, forced them to surrender, and deployed paramilitary to strafe and destroy the schools.
Last Tuesday, Martial Law was challenged in the Supreme Court by activists, Lumad and lawyers. Amidst the news of bombings, the harassment of Lumad and Moro, the uncertainty of peace, is Martial Law being propped for the whole country, at the expense of the Moro and Lumad people wanting peace and self-determination in their communities?
Where is this country headed to?
It is funny that around this week, 29 years ago, a First Quarter Storm swept the streets of Manila, the political kind where tens and thousands of youth clashed with police, in protest to Ferdinand Marcos’ Sona and charter change to extend his rule.
Two years after that, Martial Law was declared. The fire started.
Present day, storms come again.
Peace is dead, and so is Pinoy rock legend Joey “Pepe” Smith. His music taught us to come together, and sing about jeepney drivers, tambays in Quezon projects, and rocking in the Philippines and under the rain.
Stars are drowned in this sea of storms. And the hand that steers the ship is laying down.