Massacre

The word evokes in us images of wanton, merciless killing of defenseless people. A murder makes us angry but massacres at first numb our senses until we erupt in a fury. While we try to seek reasons for this unreasonable act of mass killing, of man’s inhumanity to man, nevertheless we also demand retribution, the punishment of perpetrators to assuage our collective conscience.

The massacre in Maguindanao prompted primarily by impunity in the exercise of power marks another notch in the history of mass killings in this country. We are not alone and in fact the massacres in the Philippines pale in comparison to the holocaust in Eastern Europe under Adolf Hitler and Stalin and in Asia the Japanese rape of Nanking and after the war the revolution under Mao Chedong in China and Pol Pot in Cambodia. By historical account the victims run into almost 50 million not including those killed in actual warfare.  

While the number and circumstances of the victims can classify the killing of a human being a holocaust, mass murder, or plain murder they are still abominable acts. Some are justified under the umbrella of war or even of a holy war as those of the Crusades or the jihad of the Muslims nonetheless the taking of human life for whatever reason is an exercise of power that belongs only and entirely to the Creator. Many times in history, sadly, massacres are justified as the “will of God” and the victims are unmourned, unsung and forgotten save by their kins and to become reading materials in the study of history or to remind the people of the atrocities of the past. As aptly stated in the monument in Israel to honor the holocaust victims, “Never Again” and so Israel continues to prepare and to wage war so that the mass murder of the Jews will never happen again without regard for its victims of this fear of another Jewish holocaust.

The massacre in Maguindanao has aroused a national anger but as the days leap into years and new dramatic events cover the front pages and plaster the television screens the images of that massacre begin to fade. The commemoration in fact did not elicit a national pause for them but for a few intrepid journalists. We have new concerns and as the poet of the Psalm of Life decried, we “Let the dead past bury its dead.”

We in Negros had our share of the massacre of the innocents. I will not narrate the Escalante Massacre of the martial law regime but the greater one on December 8, 1942. The Japanese in Negros celebrated their successful attack this day in 1941 in Pearl Harbor that crippled the American Pacific Fleet, so devastated that it took time for America to recover and launch their counter-attack to eventually drive the Japanese back to Japan and into submission.

It was a Tuesday that December 8 and the folks of Magallon, then a barrio of Isabela, had their market day. The Japanese had planned this attack to show that they were in command and that they would crush the remaining USAFFE troops who refused to surrender and had gone deep into the jungle or had hidden among the population. Magallon, Isabela and La Castellana were reported to be the hideout of the recalcitrant Filipino soldiers.

It was just after Mass, December 8 being a Holiday of Obligation, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. As usual, the people in the outlying areas had come down to Mass as well as to sell their produce and buy their needs until the next week’s market day. The barrio’s main square was thus filled with people. Suddenly a Japanese fighter plane swooped down the surprised multitude. Nobody ran for cover thinking the Japanese pilot was just curious. They looked up and then the pilot let go of rounds of machinegun fire and hell broke loose.

The people scampered but the plane kept coming back while the pilot saw people still within his sight. Then it left.

While hundreds lay dying or dead the rest fled out of the town only to be met by Japanese soldiers with their bayonets fixed. They fired at any one that crossed their sights and those that came in closer they bayoneted to death. Many scampered into the bushes and the cane fields and thus survived.

The Japanese occupied the town that was emptied but for the dead, the dying, the pigs and goats, the chicken and the carabaos. Then they left for the garrison.  Witnesses said the soldiers came from Isabela and La Castellana.

Nobody now in Magallon remembers that day. Those who had witnessed and survived had probably been too numbed to tell their story and the town has not a single stone to mark the day its people were massacred.

Thus do we forget in our collective memory until perhaps one day we remember.*

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