WHAT does this Roxas night market bombing mean to us?
For friends and teachers, it means the unearthing of a memory of grief 13 years ago.
Kenneth Rasay, a third-year Masscom student of Ateneo de Davao University was one of the victims of the Davao Airport bombing last March 4, 2003.
He was at the waiting shed where the bomb that was planted in a backpack exploded and killed 22 persons. That night, Kenneth’s teacher, Ma’am Daphne Padilla went to the hospital with some students to see if it was Kenneth. I heard it was a painful moment, to see a classmate, a student gone too soon.
We remembered Kenneth the moment we learned of what happened last Friday at Roxas building, which was right across Ateneo. The photos online of the dead and injured brought back those feelings of grief.
Like serendipity, Ma'am Daf and many of her students like me got connected online after this incident. Ma'am Daf began her task of tracking online the names and faces of the 14 victims, telling their life stories. We got to help share information and shared her posts.
She explained that this is a way of making people know that the 14 dead are not mere statistics but are lives with stories of struggles and dreams.
Five of the dead were massage attendants. One of them is a single mother, another a mother of three young kids. There was a police, a Moro academe, a private nurse, a student.
Two young souls were gone in that incident. Kristelle Decolongon, a 17-year-old first year pharmacist student from San Pedro Hospital died on the spot.
Twelve-year-old Daniel Farida and his mother Mariel Faith were buying costumes for their church event, they both died on the hospital.
In another moment of serendipity that I rode a taxicab and while my conversation with the driver revolved around the Roxas bombing, he revealed that he was a survivor of the 1993 San Pedro Cathedral blast.
I hear his vividly narrative how a person mysteriously stood up after the offertory and rolled something on the floor and the next thing he saw was a blast that threw the priest and church goers to the ground and later he stood up to hear wails and see bloodied bodies all over the church.
The Roxas night market blast connected us to memories of 2003, and to 1993, and for others to the bombing of Sasa Wharf in 2003 or Ecoland terminal in 2005 or on other towns in the past decade. It also connects to the Moro people who became victims too of retaliation of “war on terror”, of persecution without proof and Islamophobia.
The sensible thing I can see is how our national and local administrations are putting things in perspective. President Duterte has seen the folly of wars based on fear and hate that only resulted to more impunity. That’s his point when he said he refused help from superpowers.
This is seconded by Mayor Sara Duterte who said we must stand strong and never let terror win, even if it strikes us again and again.
Slowly, I can see the response have been positive. People are back on the streets. Guarded but optimistic. It is better than fear or ignorance.
There is a collective spirit that we shall overcome the shadows of fear because we know where it comes from. And we as a people, a community and a country trying to right the wrongs of poverty and war, is standing up now.
Tyvelez@gmail.com
