Five years of Ampatuan and nothing

ORDINARY TEACHER'S NOTES. 23 NOV 2014. SUN. N1.
Five years of the Ampatuan massacre and nothing. Zilch. Zero. Ibbung. Nunca.
A DEAR friend, Attorney Romel Bagares, reminds us of that horrific act of a regime known for impunity: the Ampatuan Massacre.
Even the dreaded Marcos Dictatorship or whatever it represented in history in our most recent history did not have that sense of the tragic. The Arroyo Regime had that, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo enabling the Ampatuan to claim that part of the country as their fiefdom.
It is the same claim of contemporary political leaders to claim a piece of earth under the Philippine sun as their own, and guarding that piece of earth fiercely with their deceptions, ruses, and donations for basketball courts, waiting sheds, and what-not, and putting up their own billboards and tarpaulins alongside these projects and saying that so-and-so donated this waiting shed good for waiting cows and waiting people with mindless brains.
In the Philippines, there are two kinds of lawyers.
First, those who understand the substance, and thus, the spirit of the law, and deploy this understanding to effect justice.
Second, those who understand the ways to circumvent the law, and thus, become instruments for justice to be delayed, and thus, effectively denied, by invoking useless technicalities in an effort to free the non-so-innocent so that in that newfound freedom, they continue to roam the earth scot-free.
Five years of Ampatuan, Dear God of Justice, is not purgatory.
It is Hell, infierno, the wrong end of justice in da Filipins.
HON/

Baro a Mannaniw-- DANIW

Baro a Mannaniw


Sursurotek ita ti tema
Ti pannakatnag da Camus ken Sartre
Iti saning-i dagiti binatog
Nga adda iti barukong dagiti duduogan

Ammok a diakto manen makagatang
Iti ayat iti tarabiit a pitik ni lagip
No dagiti maipusing a babawi
Dinakto aliawen
Pannakalmesko iti mangrabrabii a tagtagainep

Agsubliakto a matnag iti saning-i
Ti sinamar kadagiti mabuniagan
Iti nagan ti langit
Tapno itedkot bendision
Ti makipagnanaed iti agdama a temat
Napabaro nga ibabangon

Ta di latta malipatan dagiti mannaniw
Panagkeppet ti busel a di nagukrad
Uray no naiyuper iti dara ti tapok
A pug-aw dudugel di nagteng a pantok
Ni malmalanga a lasag met
Ti tibbayo ni taktakuat

Gudasek maminsan pay
Biag kadagiti pluma ti panagsubli
Tapno matnagak lubong
Ti naruay a panaglibas
Iti siled dagiti linumoten a bara
Kas iti indayon no saan nga aglallay
Wenno no awan dumngeg iti lallay

Didanto manen aglako iti palpalakpak
Ngem takuatenta, baro a mannaniw,
Takuatenta  ti saning-i dagiti binatog
Nga adda iti barukong dagiti dudungsa
Tapno agsublita a dua iti pintas




AURELIO S. AGCAOILI
Published in Bannawag, Jun 1983/Revised for accuracy and prosody