247

Just before I sat down to write this piece yesterday, I was reading the Inquirer banner story about another killing, that of peasant leader Hermilito Marqueza in Tandag, Surigao del Sur last Sunday. The lead paragraph said this happened hours after Pres. Arroyo announced the creation of an independent commission that would investigate the wave of politically linked killings.

Marqueza was the 247th victim of this “type” of killing since 2001 when Pres. Arroyo became president. If one goes by the victims listed in Amnesty International’s (AI) report released last week, Marqueza should be the 51st victim of year 2006. AI’s list ended with victim number 50, city mayor Delfinito Albano who was killed on June 27, 2006. The 49th is Wilfredo Cornea, of Task Force Mapalad, who was killed on June 20, 2000.

But one cannot breezily go down the list that way. After AI’s number 50 there must have been a few more before Marqueza who did not make it to the AI list and deadline. I cannot believe that there were no victims in July. What, no victims? That would have been unusual. Killings have been so common, so every-day, that a sudden lull is unbelievable. Marqueza is not the 51st, he’s probably the 55th. Throw in a couple of slain journalists in between.

I am appalled that I am talking numbers, sequence and lists here, like these victims were just to be ticked off a list. But they happen to have names and faces, they have families, professions, places in their communities, organizations, churches and in the hearts of those they loved and those who loved them.



I think of the 247, or even just of the 51, 52 or 53, and I think of whole families and communities that grieve for them and have been diminished because of their deaths, shocked and terrified by the way they were slain. I think of the grief that turns into fury, hot tears, clenched fists.

I am tempted to grab a calculator hoping to arrive at a number that would expand the impact but then, I thought, doing so would further reduce and relegate both the dead and the living victims to the statistics department. Numbers and lists serve a purpose but there are things one cannot quantify.

What is the future of the orphaned children, how will they move on, who will resume the work of those who were murdered, what is the impact of the slaying on the community…

Walang kalaban-laban, is how we say it in Filipino. No literal word-for-word translation for that. But it is a scenario where a victim—unarmed, unaware, unprepared, outnumbered and with no chance to fight back—is gunned down by men he or she does not know, men who emerge from the shadows and strike without warning.

Well, not exactly without warning, for not a few victims had been threatened and served notice, a not-so-strange tactic meant to set the stage for the kill.

But I also think of the perpetrators of these serial murders. Who are they, what are they? Who sent them, who funded them? Do they have personal motives? Is one death related to another? Is one perpetrator related to another?

Is this entire wave the handiwork of like-minded people acting in concert? Or are the incidents separate and the perpetrators disparate in thinking, but riding on the same wave to carry out their motives and inflict harm in rapid-fire succession in order to confuse and terrify their prey?

As they say, pwedeng sakyan ng kakit sino, any one could take advantage of the situation. Sure, but this started somewhere, by some minds. This is not a spontaneous, un-orchestrated wave.

This terrible phenomenon or wave or series is bigger than all the individual killings combined. And one cannot but lament that it took this long, it took these many unsolved killings, for the President to call for an independent investigation. More than 50 on the eighth month, why not 90 by Christmas?

I don’t know how the investigating commission tasked by the President will proceed. Will this simply be a fact-gathering, report-writing exercise? Will the commission come up with something similar to AI’s, that is, facts, recommendations, conclusions.

But will any of the crimes be solved? At least a few, so we would know the whys? Should we call in “CSI”? Sure, the killings must stop. But it is not enough that the so-called extra-judicial killings stop. We need answers. The least the bereaved families and the rest of us would like to know is who did it, who ordered it, and why. And most of all, whether justice will be served.

What has not happened yet is a backlash reminiscent of the late 1980s that saw policemen on patrol being gunned down like sitting ducks by armed anti-government groups. Some of the victims were picked because of their “reputation” and dismal human rights track record. Revolutionary justice, it is called. Others were victims of the agaw-armas (pistol-seizing) campaign of armed ideologues. Walang kalaban-laban, people would say of the poor young cops killed on the beat.

More than 10 years ago I did a long magazine story on the wave of killings of that time. I interviewed bereaved families from both sides and what did I learn?

There is no name for the pain.