In memory of a massacre

One thing is certain: you never thought it would have happened.

Our penchant for amnesia is reflected in so many ways: soap operas, grocery store change, fare. It’s not an attitude problem, but a penchant: a quirk that all too often works against us, as citizens and as a people. A year into the Ampatuan Massacre, our memories are once again jolted; if they’re not, they should be.

No one would have expected the carnage and the horrors that a yellow backhoe tried so vainly to bury in the ground. The death toll: 57 dead, 32 of them journalists. November 23, 2009 marked the Ampatuan Massacre: the most heinous assault on the Filipino psyche in the past decade. A massacre forever deemed as the most chilling demonstration of the most extreme method to impunity. Manslaughter so atrocious in deed and so appalling in proportion, that to speak of it brings the kind of spine-chilling effect of being a witness to mass murder.

One thing was certain: it was politically motivated.

Thirty-two members of the convoy that followed the family of Esmael Mangudadatu to Sharif Aguak were media practitioners. Filing certificates of candidacy, and covering events essential to the democratic process, are peaceful acts essential to the Filipino way of life. In any other situation, it is not accompanied by M-16 rifles meant to kill, armored vehicles meant to transport killers, and backhoes meant to bury the victims in mass graves. Yet the town does not enjoy that situation; years of warlord-led politics and impunity gone unchecked led guns to be normal in polling precincts and election offices.

One thing was certain: it was hideous.

In a country where tampering with the sanctity of the ballot has become a way of life for many an aspiring and corrupt politician, there used to be reason to believe that there was a boundary. It was surreal; none of us ever believed that “election-related violence” meant 57 dead people in a remote town. Yet it did happen. The surreal feeling seeped into the very marrow of our bones. Journalists wrote about the story, but not without a chilling tinge of pain. Bloggers wrote about the incident, but not without vitriol. We’ve lowered our expectations enough, as a people, to believe that bullets and pillboxes will always be around to define voting in the Philippines, but not this way. Not with cases of ammunition and the ominous sight of a backhoe burying corpses.

One thing is certain: it should be remembered.

A year later, most of us have trained our guns (so to speak) to other things. The pulpits, Hyde Parks, and echo chambers of the country — online and offline — have successfully moved on to issue after issue over the past year, that the Ampatuan Massacre has almost become an afterthought. Remembrance has given way to more rage in different places: Presidential platforms, plagiarists, showbiz personalities, social media faux pas, and so on. Somehow the chilling incident should have been the reminder to the Philippines to fix up messes, but we go through mess after mess. The outrage is lost there somewhere, with the grieving widowed and orphaned crying out for justice, and there’s barely anything to be heard from beyond the grieving.

When something so atrocious, vile, and abominable happens, you do not forget. When something so beyond the grasp of “why” could not be grasped, we should clamor for justice. When something so evil —  something beyond our sense of humanity —  happens to our fellow Filipinos, we should hope that justice is swift, righteous, and without mercy. Whether that happens or not, that is for another column altogether.

One thing is certain: it should never happen again.