UNIVERSITY of the Philippines Mindanao professor Aya Ragragio wrote a good column reflecting on the movie Tu Pug Imatuy (The Right to Kill) and the question it raises: who has the right to kill?
While she posits the question on the main character Obunay, who enacts justice on her tormentors, I posit this question to her tormentors.
They are the antagonists of this movie, men in uniform, led by the young idealistic Lieutenant Olivar and the hardened veteran on the field Sergeant Villamor.
The movie doesn’t present them as flat characters, as both clashed in the beginning on the idea of why they are in the hills. Olivar believes their role is to crush a rebellion, while Villamor personifies soldiers who have seen many combats and sees war as an end to itself.
Villamor shows his superiority by schooling Olivar: “To win this war, learn to find the road back home”, “learn to squeeze information from (the lumad), you can’t find answers in your map.”
He is ruthless towards Obunay and Dawin by pushing them into the mud, exclaiming “this is for the six comrades we lost.” But no matter how he justifies this, he has thrown his anger on hapless lumads, as is the case in real life military operations.
But a pivotal scene shows Olivar’s transformation when they come upon a Lumad school.
Here, Olivar begins doubting why a teacher is serving in a remote area, why there are books on American imperialism (which in reality was even discoursed by President Rodrigo Duterte during his APEC meeting) and why there is a foxhole inside the school.
The teacher's valid explanations that she is a Lumad in the community, that the books are history materials and that the foxhole is a hiding place for the kids during military bombings, fell on deaf ears.
Olivar smirks and pees on the books in mocking glee and orders the teacher to be tied up.
We have heard of attacks on Lumad schools over the news, but this scene enacts how it actually happens, when Lumad teachers see soldiers and paramilitary stepping inside their classrooms to disrupt and intimidate them and the students.
There is fear when soldiers lord themselves in the lumad communities, throwing malice on the good intentions of teachers and the schools ran by religious and NGOs (non-government organizations) and are in fact validated and recognized by the DepEd (Department of Education) in their Indigenous Peoples Education Program (IPEd).
Another pivotal scene comes after this scene, as Obunay and Dawin attempts to free the captive teacher, schoolchildren and mothers and the soldiers exact revenge by stabbing Dawin to death as Obunay helplessly watches and tears up inside.
The violence the soldiers wrought on Obunay and the Lumad community comes to a logical conclusion with their own violent end when the NPAs sprang upon them and Obunay lures them to a trap, and the violence and nightmare surrounding her comes to a closure here.
When we premiered this movie on Cinematheque, there was a member of the audience who remarked that this movie is heavy against the military, and it could serve well if they could see the movie as a cautionary tale.
It might serve well indeed, as we hear of a military operation in Sultan Kudarat last week where a lumad pastor was forced by Marines to squat for seven hours and forced to admit at gunpoint that he is an NPA commander responsible for the deaths of their fellow comrades.
When soldiers could not discern their enemies and hit everyone, we posit that question what right do they have to fight this all-out war?
Director Arbi Barbarona said this movie intends to show that war turns people into savages.
As art gives us a reflection of the truth, it mirrors the savagery of an all-out war and questions its motive in our country searching for just peace.
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