if there was ever a situation wherein you could say, “it’s all gone to hell in a handbasket”, i think this is it. the Philippine National Police are looking for 79 people. and they’re getting up to that count the more they look.
i honestly don’t know what to think about the entire thing anymore. in any other jurisdiction, both real and imagined; a delegation composed of women, the elderly, journalists and lawyers is entitled to some form of protection from violence. even the most hardcore of despots will give this due recognition. Mayor Mangudadatu chose the composition of the delegation well, he wanted to challenge the Ampatuans in the political arena, and he did not want to resort to open confrontation. so he sent a group of people to file his CoC which would almost universally be allowed to pass through unharmed. (unless you were batshit crazy.) but i guess they were because not even they were spared. and the warband that predated the area turned their attention even to folks who just happened to be on the highway at that time. Bystanders were rounded up and subject to the same brutality. it was an orgy of senseless, rabid, violence.
it chills me to think of how savage man can be to his fellows. when i read the descriptions of how they mutilated the dead. i can only think of how much of that pain and indignity they had to endure before finally dying. it terrifies me to think of the perpetrators… were they even human at this point? it sure does not sound like it.
and what is this fucking government doing about it?! NOT ENOUGH. why? because the Ampatuans are the fucking gnome’s political allies. they were the ones who guaranteed votes for her pet candidates over the past few elections. she was the one who allowed these warlords to amass ridiculous amounts of military might. WHY? because at the word of the Ampatuan patriarch, the people in their towns would vote. for whoever he said they would. and vote they did. i suppose not even the most inhuman piece of filth on the face of this earth is without its merits. and for the Ampatuans this merit was the unswerving loyalty to the Gnome in the Palace. something she does, and continues, until NOW, to treasure.
if my military geekery serves me correctly, at around 600-700 troops, the Ampatuans have a private army the size of a modern infantry battalion. a battalion that is probably about as well equipped as any in the regular armed forces. and is under the sway of one family.
this situation should not have been allowed to get to this point. but i guess someone as starved for a political mandate as the person in the palace… really needed those votes. now these votes are drenched in blood.
and if scuttlebutt, is to be believed, they have the temerity to proclaim that this incident may now affect whether or not the 2010 elections push through? talk about political engineering!
again… i don’t seem to be making sense. i guess it’s just like the way things are here.
while the violence may have happened thousands of kilometres away…
i can’t help but feel violated.
shit.
