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Invisible faces beyond the political killings

The statistics of political killings are alarming: As of July 14, 704 political activists have been killed since 2001, 109 of them since January 2006. With the Arroyo regime’s Oplan Bantay Laya and GMA’s ultimatum to crush the insurgency in two years, we can expect these figures to quickly rise. Especially since the military makes no distinction between the armed combatants and legitimate, unarmed and defenseless political activists.

What about the wives and children of those killed? Their numbers are exponentially greater with an estimated 5 to 6 dependents left behind per head of the family. This would bring the number of orphaned children and widows/widowers to around 4,000 as of today.

In the Cordillera alone, the deaths of Romy Sanchez. Jiose “Pepe” Manegdeg, Albert Terredaño and Rafael Markus Bangit left behind 4 widows and 13 children ranging in age from 3 to 17. It is a great burden for these mothers to cope with their grief at the death of their husbands, at the same time having to think of how to provide for their families, let alone pursuing their quest for justice. As single parents, these widows confront problems of earning enough to feed the children and putting them through school, which are overwhelming. The dilemma is not only for the moment but will be there for many years to come. As the children grow, so will their needs increase. As the economic crisis worsens so will the financial burden just to survive from day to day.

It is rather sad that these women and children are hardly given a thought by the regime that sanctioned the killings. Are they included in the “collateral damage” referred to by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales? The political killings have not only snuffed out the lives of vibrant and effective leaders of the people’s movement. They have also scarred the lives of hundreds of families who will have to cope emotionally, mentally, physically and financially with the violent death of a loved one.

The next time that government agents aim the barrel of a gun on the next political activist they have targeted for neutralization, let us hope and pray that the unheard cries and invisible faces of the women and children who will be left behind will prick their conscience. #

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