Struggle Sessions

STILL AT IT Extra-judicial killings never runs dry

NOBODY REMEMBERS BENJALINE HERNANDEZ ANYMORE. Or so at least to those who haven’t got a chance to meet her, or talk to her in person. Her name probably doesn’t have any meaning at all, other than it sounds more like a combination of two separate names, and her last name always pops up something familiar in the ear. Maybe she’s one of those who, one way or another, made a quick impression in our lives and that we somehow failed to remember her, either because it was a long time ago, or, we are, at the moment, caught up with our own pressing concerns. But for those who still remember the name and the person, it seemed like it was only yesterday that she ordered her last take-out meal right across the busy neighborhood.

Eight years ago, she was killed. Eight years ago, she was well on her way probably for a promising career in journalism. Not only was her lunch cut short by a barrage of bullets plunging into her body earlier that summer, her reporting was gone too soon also after being massacred to the ground somewhere in the outskirts of Arakan Valley at the age of 22. And like the rest of her contemporary student journalists, eight years ago, she was still learning the ropes in the formation of an idealized society where freedom is a lamppost at every corner and where justice is a shade at every stop. But the ropes, unfortunately, were cut short and the realization of that idealism disintegrated even after eight years of searching and loss. Perhaps her case was just a budding indictment for those who tried to push the boundaries of self-expression and freedom of thought.

Her death not only left a poignant loss to the already receding number of practicing journalists in the country, but it also left a sour void to the ideals of the profession she could have embraced. The tragedy was further aggravated all the more not because she died so young, so vibrant and so full of potential, but because she ended up allegedly as a casualty of a potentially insignificant row between two warring local forces. Assuming that hers was just a case of “mistaken identity”, her demise would be identified unmistakably by those who have taken the same ordeal.

Another loss to the cause of free expression was Gene Boyd Lumawag. Gene, for quite a time, was an integral part of the Collegian when I was still in my junior years at the University of Mindanao, in part because he was instrumental in presenting the paper for at least two issues with images and photos fit only for national acclaim. And since I was still learning the tools of the trade, so to speak, while knowing his heady reputation from acquaintances and, of course, his occasional wing shots courtesy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, I thought then that his flashes and shots would initiate a kind of following to our succeeding issues.

But I only get to meet Gene once casually and the next thing I knew he was gone. And to think that photographs can be construed in a much lighter way compared to written forms where you have to spell out sometimes in literal terms any fear and loathing of everyday politics, but Gene clearly was not spared of any obliteration, even if it means presenting an argument without actually uttering a word. One could only imagine that by shutting down a photojournalist that they could eventually wipe out, as in a dark room, any clearing of light in a given situation.

And so I could only seethe in the dark as to the wasting of so many lives and limbs in the fight against the killing of media practitioners in the country. For one, it scares the hell out of some of our reporters that probably the only assurance they can shield themselves away from these incessant attacks is how well they value that element of truth every time they picture, write and broadcast their news. Other than that it’s all up for grabs. And the grabbing usually can only be reigned by these crooks who have that extensive and executive hold on society. And secondly, that its status quo has now reached new heights of incredible callousness and shame in that most of its victims, until now, especially the immediate families, are still very much at it, trying relentlessly in salvaging whatever is left of them after suffering a heavy blow from these assassins.

Last year when the United Nations found out that 50 to 55 percent of the species in the world are already extinct or in danger of being wiped out completely from the face of the earth, maybe they are intimating also that broadcasters and journalists are included in the list. And it isn’t hard to validate that assertion since we only have to look back a few months ago and see the fullness of that claim when they tried to backhoe these same species and bury them to oblivion.

A friend who writes in a local newspaper, and does occasional layouts for other local dailies for his daily survival comes to mind, a typical prototype of a struggling local journalist. He starts his day by being dependent on his publisher for his sporadic breakfast, and during intervals, would opt to smoke almost a pack of cigarettes a day just to inspire his adrenaline to distribute copies of the paper on foot. After that he starts wooing his girlfriend in a rundown bakery for a measly coffee so he could write news stories while gazing at her voluptuousness perhaps, all the while texting his barkada for some drinks and pulutan late in the day so he might not go through the night with an empty stomach, but with a heightened sense of doing the same routine again the following day.

These are just a few of the setbacks that make an institution, like the United Nations, alarmed, after seeing the extent of digression taking place in almost all of the species in the world, including the human kind, and, especially the media one. And so by the time that this grim reaper tries to put a bullet in the head of that brash news anchor or that bakery journalist, chances are he’ll end up killing a dependent, tired, romantically hopeless, caffeine-drenched, starved indigent with only his “pobre lang mi, bay, pero puno mi ug idealismo” mentality to hold on to.

Keeping a broadcaster’s mouth close and knotting a journalist’s hands tight doesn’t make any difference at all as far as burying the issue to the grave is concerned. It simply makes us all stagnant in the face of challenges and healthy discussions brought about by letting that free press exercise its mandated arm. And it simply doesn’t make any sense to kill a struggling journalist just to keep a tight reign on impunity and corruption, now that we know that that journalist is simply keeping a tight reign of his own equally tight survival.

I wish I could assure Benjaline right in front of her grave that after eight years since she died at the hands of her assailants, that we are still fighting the “ills of society”, (as she always put it) in the manner we know best, by putting to rest any attempts of bigotry and ballyhoo in a society she longs to bring about. I wish I could assure Gene right in front of his grave that until now we are still focusing our concerns on the images that he highlighted a few years ago, by taking shots of impartiality and vigilance to the struggles and sacrifices of the poor, the tired and the defeated in exchange for a better picture of the issue. And how I wish I could assure my friend right in front of that bakery that his efforts will ultimately win everybody's hearts (including his girl), not because he has developed an uncanny way to survive, but because of his “foolish” determination to deliver the goods and the news despite the imminence of a threatening bullet and the bleakness of the situation.

If that “foolishness” finds an expression six feet below the ground, then it is all too fitting that this country is an unhealthy place for a journalist to expose himself, let alone writing news stories under a fluctuating light of a struggling bakery.