Straight from the hearth By Gloria Esguerra Melencio
Hatred and carnage in Maguindanao; stomping to death a kitten in UP
I remember Dr. Milagros Guerrero’s side comment many decades ago in our Kasaysayan class that Filipino parents usually blame the table leg, wooden chair, floor or anywhere toddlers ram onto instead of telling them to stand up, admit their mistakes and take responsibility for what happen to them.
As a people, we blame others for our misfortunes: the traffic jam as the cause of our being late for work, the rainy weather for not being able to dry the laundry, the oil companies for the increase in the commodity prices, and so forth and so on. The list of the things we blame for what is happening in our environment is long.
This culture of blaming hitches on the cycle of hatred, animosity and violence as what happened in Maguindanao last Monday where Datu Unsay town mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. is suspected of leading the carnage of 57 people mostly helpless women, unarmed journalists and innocent travelers who happened to follow the convoy of the Mangudadatus who are to file a certificate of candidacy for a gubernatorial post against the powerful Ampatuan.
It was blamed on the Filipino Muslims’ rido culture where families annihilate each other, an endless act of vendetta of political clans in Maguindanao. Two sons of the incumbent Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. were killed in Cotabato City and in a roadside bomb attack in 2002. The old Ampatuan has 30 children by his four wives and clan intermarriages have ensured him a long line of succession and a stronghold to power in the province.
University of the Philippines Islamic Studies Professor Julkipli Wadi analyzes that political vendetta goes beyond the emotionally-charged rido culture as the Maguindanao problem feeds on ‘symbiotic relationships’, political opportunism and military power crisscrossed with extreme poverty, deprivation and hunger.
The Ampatuans’ private army is allegedly composed of CAFGUs, local police and second generation armed Muslims who grew up in an environment of blaming – hating the one who challenges their grand patriarch who feeds and provides for them – and fired up by blind loyalty to violate, behead and mutilate whoever crosses the path of the powerful clan.
Dr. Guerrero was clear then that this culture of violence begins in every parent who teaches the child to push, whip or kick anyone or anything who he or she thought has inflicted the pain. It is not only about class struggles. History has many stories to tell that goes beyond the revolutions, rebellions or wars in Mindanao, or the French Revolution or even the Second World War.
Right inside the University of the Philippines-Diliman campus, a BS Physics major of the UP College of Science stomped a kitten to death last 13 April 2009. Said student caught the ire of animal rights group when he bragged on his blog: “I pulled it on its tail and threw it. Then like some pro wrestler I jumped on it and my feet landed on it’s torso. Slam! Felt good!”
This supposed-to-be “harmless” killing (when has killing been harmless?) because “it is only a cat anyway” premeditates a purview that it is all right to kill anyone who we perceive as belonging to the lower strata of the life chain. (Philippine Animal Welfare Act protects animals against cruelty, by the way.) Or, for humans, it is all right to be above the law and kill people in retaliation much like the recent Maguindanao carnage.
What have we been teaching our children, the future generation of Filipinos?
