Artists speak up on extra-judicial killings

BAGUIO CITY – As the death toll continues to rise in the ongoing war on drugs, a group of Manila and Baguio-based writers, photographers and artists are speaking up via poetry.

The poetry reading- cumphoto presentation: “Ghost Readings” on Nov. 3, 6 p.m. at Mount Cloud in Casa Vallejo, here, is both an offering and lamentation for the thousands killed in the war against illegal drugs.

As of Oct. 24, 1,711 “drug personalities” have been killed during police operations. Another 3,001 were killed by unknown suspects and have been classified as “deaths under investigation” (DUI).

Among those reading their poems and prose are Ubbog, Baguio Writers Group and Monday Cloud poets.

Manila-based photojournalist Mark Saludes and other photojournalists will be showing some of the photos they took of the casualties, both of the police operations and of suspected vigilantes and drug lords.

Also, in commemoration of the seventh year of the Ampatuan Massacre, a poem reading session on “The Haunting of Ampatuan” is slated.

Members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines Baguio- Benguet will read the poems of Baguio writers Luchie Maranan, Frank Cimatu and Desiree CaluzaCruz on the Ampatuan massacre.

At least 58 people – 32 of whom were journalists – were murdered en masse by a Maguindanao warlord, was touted as the most horrifying mass killing of journalists in the world in a single incident yet.

Seven years after and justice for the victims remains elusive, the NUJP said.