Midnight, our sons and daughters
Were cut down and taken from us
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
U2 – Mothers of the Disappeared
I do not know exactly how many activists involuntarily disappeared or were “salvaged” during the military dictatorship of Marcos, but it was a totally different way to be neutralized by the state at that time and a single or few incident easily assumed monumental proportions. This is not to mean that other military atrocities were less condemnable, it’s just that evil took another malevolent form in the military campaign of the fascist state. In this case there were no telltale signs of torture or physical pain inflicted on the body of the detained languishing in some obscure detention center of a military camp. There was only extreme mental anguish on the family, the mother especially, caused by the prolonged uncertainty of the fate that has befallen their loved ones.
It must be indescribable mental torment to convince one’s self and just accept the thought that the missing has been killed by his/her abductors yet at the same time cling to the hope that he/she is still alive, kept in some military (un)safehouse. How can one accept death when he or she is only certain that the person is missing and not that s/he is dead? And how can one hope when everything leads to nowhere but to assume that the missing is as good as dead?
Would you rather hope or accept? Would it be faith or resignation? Can one accept, abduction and yet hope at the same time?
Ahh, the state – its capacity to inflict untold suffering and intolerable pain to the people is boundless.
This week is the International Week of the Disappeared and whether or not the Philippines will sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Forced Disappearance is something to watch, considering that the fake government of Macapagal-Arroyo is not about to end the abductions and killings her attack dogs are currently carrying out. Close to 200 cases since her assumption to the presidency in 2001, and there is no end in sight.
France’s appeal for the Philippines to ratify the Convention for eventual enforcement might yet fall on deaf ears. Or the Arroyo administration may heed it, under extensive international pressure and since she will also be in Portugal, in time for the anniversary of the Fatima apparition. She might claim enlightenment while being there. Who knows? She has already claimed getting messages from angels before so why not the BVM this time at the venerated site. But I bet, sure as hell, it will only be as fake as her presidency – both the ratification and the Fatima devotion.
U2 was only half-right in its song Mothers of the Disappeared when it lamented the midnight abduction of victims.
That’s because, in the Philippines, it happens even in broad daylight.
