Ombion: Killings surge amid 'festival'

AS THE festive-like elections gain momentum towards the homerun, the violence and killings take a high gear, too.

After a string of unsolved massacres of poor and helpless peasants, killing of human rights lawyers, murder of prominent political and civil figures, a recent wave of brutal mass murders, tokhang-like operations struck again, this time in the hinterlands of Negros Oriental and Occidental.

Official reports are unclear of who the perpetrators were, though in some reports, they are quick to put the blame on the so-called CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army) “communist terrorists,” a label introduced by the US psywar experts to vilify Vietnamese revolutionaries during their war of aggression in Vietnam, and has been popularized by their client-states since then.

But to one with a critical mind, the pattern seems the same. The spate of violence and killings is directed to common target, the peasants fighting for lands, communities allegedly sympathetic to the revolutionary movement, political activists and dissenters, and ordinary folk allegedly webbed into illegal drugs.

Why intensify it this time? One, the noise and festive climate of the ongoing election campaign could easily cover up these killings, or put them into the sidelight or dim light. Two, project that these are isolated cases and could be dismissed as the handiwork of trouble makers, communist terrorists and peace saboteurs out to undermine the right of people to suffrage.

Or three, the chief perpetrator, most likely the state and its paid loose thugs and trolls, who have all the power, resources, network to do it, want to convey the message to the “hey, you damned s***” that they can do and get what they want anytime anywhere.

I feel so sad about our state of life today. Life has becomes so cheap. Killing has become a convenient way to exact grievance. The illegal has become the moral and vice versa. The justice system doesn't seem to care anymore what is just and not. And those in the corridors of power couldn't care less.

I feel enraged that Negros is fast turning again into a mass killing field.

How many more lives, innocent and just, will be offered in the altar of vested interest and ego during this election campaign and after?

Meanwhile, bureaucratic corruptions, looting of public coffers for election campaign, open partisanship of local officials despite Malacañang and Department of the Interior and Local Government warnings, continue unabated.

I pray that well-meaning government officials, candidates, citizens groups, churches, and the academe would take pauses between their usual normal activities to listen to the cries of the innocents and the rumblings on the ground, and do whatever they could to bring some hope in the hearts of our weary, worried people.

For feedback, email to ombion.ph@outlook.com.

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