Mindanao Bites

“Mizpah!  The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent from one another,”

  - Og Mandino, The Christ’s Commission

            In Mindanao, we have seen the faces of painful exodus of half a million Filipinos, we have heard the agonizing cries of the living and the dead, we have read their writings inscribed on the land of promises asking ‘why us’ from both the fighting and the victims, and we have talked literally about the pictures, words, and sounds of decades of conflict. Have we anyhow felt their trembling emotions of emptiness, having taken everything from them by war except pieces of questions and hope?

             During the Gulf war in 1990s, I followed the events, at that time, with awe and amazement of the new, high-tech artilleries of the American forces. It was how I saw the events just like in the movies, missing entirely the core message of war. One rocket-missile costing for about, I don’t know how much, but could have fed a hundred hungry children once hit the target causing deaths to the enemies, destruction of homes, seeding fear and trauma to the victims. Death which meant loss of father to a son, son to a father, brother to a brother, bred hatred, anger and revenge tarrying its time.

             Wars are essentially of the same kind of evil. They differ just in the fronts and they end just the same – no victors. When the government troops overran Camp Abubakar, I found it unacceptable to claim victory being a peace advocate and knowing that there is something more to come, waiting to exhale. True enough, it did come when a lesser jihad for all Muslims was called. Since then unlike in the movies, I do not see the ending or the plot of the story. As in chess, threats are more telling in sowing fear of losing that their execution.

            Since Bicol is many seas and islands away from Mindanao, I could barely empathize with our brothers and sisters who are directly or indirectly victims of the war. Not until I met a classmate in college whose husband was part of the team that overran Abubakar, until I heard the tale of a mother whose son is still there in the thick of action, and until I read a letter from a new mother who has just delivered a baby boy without a husband beside her. I saw their worries, fears, anxieties, and prayers in the guise of the seemingly cheerful faces, reserved in their eschewed looks in the eye, and in-between lines of the letter. Finally I had Mindanao through them, vivid, real, disturbing, piercing and ripping.

            Whether we admit it or not, the Mindanao question has ranged over us one way or another. Every day we are gaping witnesses to the tragedies, massacres, ambushes, crimes of our recent times that are either explicitly or obliquely expressions and forms of Mindanao question. A theory in psychology would point out that external events are attributed to the way we behave. Troubled, agitated yet defenseless. Jean Anouilh used to say, ‘there is nothing to do but scream.’

            Aray! (Complaint of pain).. Mosquitoes, rainy days are here again. (I feel a sudden lump in my throat when I read the Department of Health (DOH) report indicating that there have already been 24 dengue cases around the country.)

          Shhhhhh.... At once I need not move composure and poise under pressure are invoked to lure mosquitoes to come over to my side. Composure, poise and restraint under pressure to retaliate and get even are needed in conflict resolution and prevention.

             But mosquitoes bite randomly.


           Plak!! I think I’ve crushed the little things so hard. Now I have blood marked on my numb palm and shin. Of course, bites hurt.

           I have yet to learn from these mosquitoes. I want no more blood on my hand.