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“He meant Bethlehem," an editor-friend mused. "But didn’t he describe Maguindanao too?” He read Jeremiah for the “Massacre of the Innocents” feast. Since the 4th century, this day is marked on the last week of December.
Six centuries before Herod sent soldiers to kill all boys, two years and under, in Bethlehem, this prophet wrote: “A cry was heard in Rama, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’
Twenty centuries after Bethlehem, “sobbing and loud lamentation” resounded in Maguindanao. Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.'s gunmen cut down 57 women, journalists, even passers-by, witnesses told the justice department.
“Like Herod,” my friend noted. There are parallels between Bethlehem and Ampatuan. Despotism spawns the same monsters. Rulers of both towns went ballistic over threats to their power.
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” the Magi asked.“We saw his star rise in the east and come to honor him”. Herod "was greatly disturbed”, Matthew wrote. The Ampatuans learned that Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu sought election as Maguindanao governor. They, too, were upset.
“Get information about the child…and report to me,” Herod asked the Magi. Instead, “they returned to their home country by another way.”
Not Manguindanao deputy provincial police director Sukarno Dicay. Over the radio, he reported to Andal Jr . His troops tracked, then stopped Mangudadatu’s convoy, enroute to Comelec to file a certificate of candidacy.
”Dito na Datu. Naharang na ang mga Mangudadatu. Napara na lahat. Dito sa Malating. (They are here, Datu. We blocked the Mangudadatus. Here in Malating.)”, ABS-CBN quotes witnesses.
Were convoy members armed, Andal Jr asked. “Lawman” Dicay replied: No. "They’re mostly women". “Look for the files of Toto Mangudadatu,” Andal Jr. ordered.
“Father, they are here,” Andal Jr. reported over radio. TV’s Ces Oreńa-Drilon’s compelling account states that Andal Senior replied: 'You know what you must do.'
Cyberspace reported Maguindanao's massacre; not possible with Bethlehem. “Jimmy Cabillo, Midland Review reporter...( that morning) was on his knees begging for his life….“Ako ito Datu. Maawa ka. Si Pal-ak ito Datu. Wag Datu. (It’s me, Datu. Please have mercy. This is Pal-ak, Datu. Please don’t, Datu.)”
“Unsay knew Jimmy…having covered Maguindanao in the past. It didn’t matter. Datu Unsay unloaded his firearm into Jimmy, laughing as he did it.” Laughter over gunshots resonates in accounts of women being slapped, journalists beaten, then killed.
Did Herod laugh? In Bethlehem, one of those killed was one of Herod’s own sons, we’re told. "It’s better to be Herod's hog than his son," Roman emperor Augustus snapped. He alluded to Herod’s cruelty amidst the custom of refusing to slaughter swine.
Maguindanao’s brutality stoked seething fury here and abroad. That rage compelled the Ampatuans major patron, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, to crack down reluctantly on political monsters she had created.
In that wrath, the President glimpsed re-emerging people power. She has tried to straddle the rising whirlwind. Ferdinand Marcos tried as much – and failed. Will she succeed?
It depends. Power is already draining from Malacańang, as the term end approaches. Will Maguindanao victims get justice? Will the next few months see reforms to reverse the continuing “Unseen Slaughter of the Innocents”?
Our most fractured human right is what many neighboring countries take for granted, namely, the right of infants to celebrate their first birthdays. In this matatag na republika, 20 out of every 1000 kids never make it to their first birthdays. In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, infant deaths crest at 42, approximating Nambia.
More could have seen their first birthdays. In next door Malaysia, .infant mortality rates are down to 8. Those dry-as-dust statistics mask an obscene scandal: ours are preventable deaths.
Compared to cuts in the Macapagal Highway or Mega-Pacific election computers, kickbacks for medicines in public clinics are miniscule. But thieves cut out seven of every 10 pesos from drugs the poor need, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism found. The Ombudsman hasn’t protected them anymore than probe the unexplained wealth of the Ampatuans.
Many infants are born by ill-fed mothers in job-short families. “There are more undernourished children and nutritionally-at-risk pregnant and lactating mothers then there were six years ago,” the 7th national nutrition survey found
Medical care for the poor is short. Skilled medical personnel attend half of every 100 births here. In Thailand, 99 out of every 100 mothers have such personnel during delivery, the UN Human Development Report states
Too many kids die. Their deaths are the real cost of graft. Unlike Maguindanao, there’s no outcry. Why? Because their shrouds are mostly in city slum hovels or farm shacks. They’re out of sight.
Herod’s “Slaughter of the Innocents “has been replayed here daily for years. Worse, it’s taken for granted.
So, was the seething fury of Nobel Laureate Elie Werisel’s prayer justified? “God of forgiveness,” this Holocaust survivor prayed at Auschwitz death camp rites, “do not forgive the murderers of children…”
