Remembering 23.11.2009

I just looked at the Ampatuan massacre pictures. This time it wasn't just out of "curiosity", in fact I've been avoiding looking at them since I heard of the massacre. Often we prefer to keep our eyes closed especially when we know that the reality we'll see is gruesome and difficult to take. But today I made the decision to look because i needed to. I think everyone who feels and is angered about this issue should see it. More than that, those who feel indifferent and think it's just another conflict in Mindanao should see it. Because someone must remember these images. You know how time sometimes makes things blurry? We can't allow that to happen. We must look and we must remember. We find it painful just looking at them - what more if you were actually the one MURDERED and tortured? Totally unprepared, did they see their life flash before their eyes? In the brink of death and with heightened sense did they see demons that day instead of humans?

I find it difficult to look but imagine if you were one of the loved ones who were looking at those pictures? To see your father or mother butchered that way? To see your husband or wife or child so helplessly and brutally killed? To see your sister or brother, die a violent death in the course of doing a job or going about his/her normal day? How painful would that be? Will the years ever dull the pain? I don't have an answer. I don't know and can't even imagine how it will be like to be in their places.

This time we simply can't look away anymore. They say Ampatuan cries in his jail cell and is afraid of ghosts. What a small price to pay. His ghosts will haunt him until the day he dies. Unlike them however maybe he will even die a decent death.