The new killing fields
In a long and terrible stretch of time, a certain Pol Pot and a reported band of cold-bloodied killers known as Khmer Rogues sowed unimaginable terror in Cambodia. They displayed ferocity with seething impunity. Their version of whatever law they had in their mind, mostly unwritten, was enforced brutally by the deadly muzzle of their unforgiving guns. Lifeless bodies were strewn in many parts of their country. More often, the murder victims were innocent individuals who had no means to protect themselves nor possessed with any facility to offer resistance to the marauding killers. What was worse was that their governors were their own perceived executors. Before long, that country was called "killing fields" and the tag was appropriate, if recorded history were to be consulted.
Pol Pot's bloody reign gripped Cambodia in the mid to late 70s while our own Martial Law was enforced throughout our country. From the stand point of gravity, the Cambodian leader ruthlessly drenched his land with thicker blood than Marcos apparently did to the Philippines. Yes, there were thousands of reported killings hereabouts but aside from the murder of the late Sen Benigno Aquino Jr., and the attempt on the life of then Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez, the victims of Marcos' military rule were mostly civilians whose only crime was, aside from poverty, their assertion of their freedom of free speech. If only from that limited point of comparison, the label "killing fields" rightfully belonged to Cambodia and not to our country.
A radio broadcast the other day reported that there were already ten mayors who were murdered since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed power. The number was more than just bothersome. It had a chilling effect on me. The latest killings victimized Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan City and Mayor Ferdinand Bote, of General Tinio town in Nueva Ecija. That these deaths took place in Pres Duterte's watch in close succession horrified the radioman no end. The broadcaster proceeded to emphasize a more frightening scene. The late Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte was arrested on charges of being a drug lord, jailed and in his cell, was assaulted, at dawn when everybody was asleep, by a team of heavily armed policemen. Espinosa was murdered by the authorities mandated to protect the citizens. Yet, look where the killers are now?
The broadcaster also discussed how unbelievably gruesome was the attack on the house of the late Ozamiz City mayor by police officers. Without passing judgment on the brutal character of the Parohinog assault, the radioman said the policemen's siege on a private home was so unprecedented the Nazi blitzkrieg would pale in comparison.
Before I could arrest my discomfiture, he also mentioned that other elected government leaders were more fortunate to survive attempts on their life in recent days. ARMM Assemblyman Sidik Amiril was ambushed in Davao City. He was wounded but his guard died. Laguna Board Member Reynaldo dela Torre also survived a murderous assault. Still, he added the known fatalities to the thousands killed in the wake of the president's war on drugs to come out with a gruesome picture. Then he enumerated names as Marcelito Paez, Richmond Nilo of Nueva Ecija, and Mark Anthony Ventura of Cagayan province - all priests who fell to assassins' bullets.
I do not want to adopt the term "killing fields" and label our country with it because it evokes fear among us. In projecting the absence of the rule of law in our land that killing fields connotes, it carries a further negative impact on the faltering administration of our president. But I cannot be faulted if I say what I believe is true. Truth hurts. Our country is indeed likely becoming the new "killing fields."