Maguindanao Massacre: Now on DVDs

January 12, 2010

Part of my assignment in legal writing is to make a descriptive narrative of the two-day retrieval operations of the bodies in the mass grave site of the Maguindanao Massacre.

With the help of my ever-dependable friend, we were able to meet the required 5 pages. The video seemed to be an unofficial video, probably taken by someone outside of the government. The video was unedited. Because the paper was to take note of the details, I couldn’t close my eyes to not see the bloated bodies and unreconizable faces. In fact, I had to describe the scenes, vividly if I can.

Anyway, I heard that the government was against the proliferation of the said video. My friend said that the government thinks that the people should not watch it over and over again and that this adds insult to what these people had already suffered.

On the other hand, I believe that there is nothing wrong watching these videos, even with friends and classmates in school AVRs or with officemates while sitting in a modern office furniture.

In the first place, let us not forget that pictures paint a thousand words. The video is a more accurate account of what befell the unfortunate victims. I hope that people, especially those in public order and public service, who would watch this film would “open” their eyes and see that these atrocities really happen. It is an appeal to those with poor imagination and to those turning blind to reality.

Second, I hope this video would be a reminder to the SOCO and other personnel to be more vigilant in securing the crime scenes. During the first day of retrieval, it was mostly the volunteers who were digging the area to search for bodies while those wearing SOCO shirts stood watch. Evidently, whatever vestiges of evidence left would be tampered or destroyed as, understandably, the volunteers weren’t aware of the proper protocol in handling corpses.

Intended or not, let this video wake us up. We need not see these cruelties to act, but we did not, and the video reminds us of that.