“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
AS OF this writing, 14 are dead. Lives were blown to pieces in the blink of an eye. Perhaps some of them came to the night market to eat, have a massage, work, drink, or to just be there. They never made it out of Roxas street alive. Their bodies were shredded by shrapnels. Bodies torn, lives cut off like some gasping breath. A child, a student, a man, a woman, a Dabawenyo-they came from different places only to die in the asphalt street amid the supposed to be happy noises of a night market. They never finished the meal or the massage; they never got to the last gulp or the final goodbye to loved ones. They just died.
By now, we, Dabawenyos should be used to this. Our city for years has been bombed. Dozens have died in airports, ports, movie houses, churches and now, a night market. We should all be used to this but we are not. I am not. The last time I wrote about something like this was thirteen years ago when the old Davao airport was bombed. Scores were killed in those incidents then came another fourteen that have died recently. I will never get used to it. I cannot make any sense of it. To say that these are meaningless deaths would be by itself an exaggeration. Why all these deaths? Of course we can all give our worth and sentiments about these horrific things but it will not do any good, the dead are still dead. Grief still is in the air.
And of course there is the callousness and the viciousness of people. Hardly had the blood been cleaned when social media started with “akala ko ba safe city ang Davao” or “karma 'yan sa inyo.” And there’s the insinuation that this was the handiwork of Duterte’s people. And as an added insult “Davao is not the safest place after all.” Wow, people were actually gloating. People were posting their glee if you will over the demise of 14 people. But then again, that is nothing new. Ever since Davao became Davao we have been neglected, insulted, forgotten, and abandoned and yes, bombed. That we are used to. They want us to fail, we get that. We understand that.
In the 80s, we were left to fend off for ourselves. Our streets became killing streets and the city became a ghost town. Did the government help us out? Those of you who lived through those years know the answer. But we managed, we survived and we prospered. No thanks to government. No thanks to Manila. We became what we are now because of what we did and do. When Duterte became president, it even became more pronounced. And now this. Suddenly, the worms have come out. Suddenly, the beasts have pounced and suddenly, the puppets have started yakking. Right on cue, the programmed have begun their programming. Nothing new, we are used to this.
The people who have shouted the loudest are the most ignorant. The ones who have gloated are the ones who have no idea of what it is like to live in Davao. The ones who have made the most insulting of remarks are the most idiotic. The ones who have cruelly and viciously disrespected our dead are the most obvious.
Do not bring your jaundiced minds into our consciousness. Do not sing your robotic songs in our presence. Do not disgrace our dignity with your pettiness and your cruelty. Do not come into our lives with your endless tirades because of your meaningless existence. We can very well survive without you. We have indeed lived through what you have done and what you have failed to do. We do not need you.
We do not need your heartlessness because we have our hearts. We do not need your evil because we have our goodness. We do not need your mindlessness because we have our own minds. We do not need your coldness because we have our warmth. We do not need you because we have each other. Davao is strong because its people are…because we are. And thanks to you, we will become even stronger. What you have said is not a reflection of who we are. It is a sign of what you are.
Spare us your false sympathies. Do not insult us with your “righteous” selves. Do not teach us what is right and what is wrong. We know what is right because we see it in us. Do not preach us about roads and paths to take. The last road took us nowhere. We have our own paths. We know what and who we are. Spare us your hypocrisy and myopia.
Traditionally when a president comes from a certain place, that place will get the lion’s share of infrastructure. In Davao we shed our blood. Are we scared? Yes we are.
But we are not afraid.