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Speaking your mind these days is as difficult as believing what you see and feel in this time of war, acceptance and resilience. Hundred days have passed and the volume of the unheard voices rose into its maximum loudness. It deafens us and numbs the heart each day.
I actually chose to be silent in the past 100 days not because I do not want to contribute to the rhetorical exchanges of people who chose to be expressive and even loud in condemning others. I chose to observe as I allowed myself to heal from this painful nightmare. I may have words in my mind but these won’t get articulated because until today, my heart bleeds.
I have tried picking myself from piece to piece before I can finally write the first word in this article. I see myself in a jungle of fears and tears as I trod this journey. I fear that one day, Filipino Muslims will be hated because of this experience that no one wished to be in.
Tears run dry already on this day. This is the 100th day of the Marawi siege and the war doesn’t end. It escalates on its own like a virus that intensifies as it spreads in a sick human body. Complications of causes and effects are everywhere, countless and relentless. I chose to be quite in order to find the best description to my emotions. Not until I am pushed to this limit. I personally condemned the terrorist acts of my kababayans who brought havoc to my community.
The anger in me turned me into an overwrought damsel.
This enraged feeling that I have is brought by the 100 days of sacrifice, worry and even sleepless nights.
In spaces where we have to contain heat and congestions in evacuation centers and homes of others,
we have long stories of 100 days of pain, tears and fears.
Many stories were told and spoken through thin air like a melancholic song sang in the middle of the night without a listener. Ironic, isn’t it?
This irony bites us to the bones. It pains me that my people became savages and refugees of their own
land. Many became so dependent on what this government will give. The siege turned them into frustrated travellers who have no destination.
Each time I deliver help to certain evacuation camps, my heart bleeds afresh. I cannot contain the emotion in me each time I see how this siege have turned my people into savages. Many would cry out loud just to have their share. This is not who we were.
We are supposed to be people with grace and diplomacy. Our culture of shame was too high that we
cannot allow ourselves to be subjects of ridicule. But this siege turned us into what we never dreamed to be.
Our people have suffered so much in the past 100 days and this siege has pained us so much that until today, we cannot express ourselves the way we should and would as a community. Fears and tears have turned us to stones numbed by time. We are no longer the same people.
The only hope that I have in me now is the change that I want to see. I wish that this catastrophe has taught us to move forward in a better position—a position that can change us for a better Meranaw. I am hopeful that my people will find the meaning of survival in its positive way. I am hopeful that one day, we can wake up whole again with a heart yearning for a better us.
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