INQUIRER OPINION - COLUMNS

For the fallen

Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer

December 06, 2009

THERE are two lechonsito girls, sugar and

honey. Their mother Cecile has not been home
for two years, caring for children in Qatar. Her
husband Eduardo stayed in Tacurong,
licensing officer 3 for the Tacurong City
government. The overseas work was
necessary to pay for the tuition of the two
college girls. Honey studied in Manila, Sugar
in Iloilo.

Both girls had not seen their mother for two

years. Sugar had not seen her father for one.

On Nov. 23, two weeks after Cecile came

home for Honey’s graduation, the couple
stepped into a service car, a red Toyota Vios
driven by a Tacurong City Hall employee
named Wilhelm Palabrica. Eduardo, 53, had
suffered a mild stroke days before, and Cecile
had made arrangements to bring her husband
to Cotabato City for a CT scan. With them
were Mercy Palabrica, Wilhelm’s cousin, and
Daryll de los Reyes. Both were also city hall
employees.

On the road to Shariff Aguak, the red Vios

with its cargo of five was stopped along with a
convoy of vehicles from Buluan,
Maguindanao.

All five bodies have been found.

Sugar is petite, with straight black hair falling

just beneath her shoulders. Honey keeps her
hair in a ponytail, and holds her sister’s hand.
They are quiet girls, soft-spoken.

The family wants justice, wants law

implemented by a government without fear or
favor. They want every murderer found, to the
last man. Those men were animals.

The girls wish they could hug their parents,

but the bodies are too battered to hold.

***

Noel Decena was 25 when he died.

He stopped classes after high school. They

couldn’t afford tuition. His father is a truck
driver, whose eyes were growing weak. Noel
took himself off from his hometown in
Midsayap, North Cotabato to General Santos
City to hunt for a job. He found it in a small
weekly newspaper called Periodico Ini,
published by a man named Freddie Solinap,
who took Noel under his wing. Noel had
potential, Freddie said, learning quickly and at
once. Freddie always thought Noel would go
back to school, and encouraged the boy.

His brother Joseph graduated from high

school this year. Joseph—Love-love, as the
family calls him—had reconciled himself to
giving up college. Noel took him aside, and
promised him an education. Love-love would
go to school; Noel would make sure. Every
time Noel came home, there would be a T-
shirt for Love-love.

Noel had a girl, Jinky, a pretty brown-skinned

girl with a quiet smile. They were together
two years, broke up, and got together again.
Jinky hated Noel’s drinking; it was why they
fought. He stopped for her.

Noel told Love-love that he would be home on

the 24th for Midsayap’s Foundation Day. The
day before, he received a message from his
big brother. “I-ampo ko diri kay naa na mi diri
sa Ampatuan. Kritikal amo sitwasyon diri.”

Please pray for us, we’re already here in

Ampatuan. Our situation here is critical.

Freddie did not know Noel had gone to

Ampatuan. He thought Noel was in Sultan
Kudarat, dealing with the paper’s circulation.
Freddie was in a bus on his way back from
General Santos when he received a message
from a colleague, asking if he knew Bart’s
status. Bart was Ernesto “Bart” Maravilla, of
Bombo Radyo in Koronadal City. Freddie
asked what had happened to Bart. His
colleague laughed at him, asked him what sort
of media man he was that he didn’t know what
was happening. Freddie messaged his editor in
chief for a situationer, and received no reply.
He finally responded to his colleague that he
was in Davao attending a seminar. It was, he
explains with a shrug, his way of removing
himself from the embarrassing position of
being an ignorant media man.

It was only when he arrived at his office that

his secretary gave him the news. Media men
and Mangudadatu women had been held
hostage on the road to Shariff Aguak. Five of
the men belonged to him, including his editor
in chief. Noel Decena was one of the five.

It was at night when the massacre was

confirmed. It was Freddie who went from
funeral parlor to funeral parlor, hunting for
Noel’s body. The others had family; Noel’s
was far away. He did not believe Noel was
dead. Love-love sent messages to Freddie,
asking if the stories were true, if his brother
was dead.

Freddie answered Love-love the next

morning.

Jinky heard about Noel from her mother.

When she raced to Midsayap and the Decena
home, she found Noel in a white coffin, laid
out in a makeshift parlor outside the one-room
hut. There were paper flowers in bright blue
and red, and blue plastic. They told Jinky
Noel’s secret: that he was planning to ask her
to be his wife.

Love-love misses his brother. They laughed a

lot the last time he was home. He didn’t know
he would come home dead.

***

When Andy Teodoro was murdered, he left

behind a family and a newspaper. He died on
a Monday morning, but his paper will not.
Hope will not allow it.

There are nine Teodoro children. Winston,

Hope Joseph, Rich Andrew, Joan, Charity,
Jonas, Teddy, Andrea and Sophia.

Hope is the second son, and Andy’s right

hand. The Central Mindanao Inquirer covers
region 12, with a circulation of more than 500.
Andy has worked for the paper for almost 20
years, and in the last years brought Hope with
him for coverage. Andy, bureau chief of the
weekly six-page paper, shot photos, filed
stories, and was capable of hitting friends in
his column when he felt it was necessary.
Charity says Papa would come home in the
dark, wet from the rain. Teddy says Papa
would travel far for a story, just to put meals
on the table.

Everyone dies, says a weeping Joan. But not

this way. All of them, all nine children who
now sit in white shirts and dark glasses,
dripping tears into laps, have lived through
Andy’s death. How would you feel, asks Rich
Andrew, if you saw your father dug out of the
earth with a backhoe?
Eight-year-old Sophia does not understand
why these men killed Papa. Sophia, all of 8
years old, curly-haired with swollen eyes.
Papa never did anything. Papa never hurt
anyone. She wants them all to die, these men.
She wants them to disappear.

Andy’s wife Gloria is angry. “Whoever the

killers are, and I will not say their name, I
hope it ends here, their power, their brutality,
their viciousness. I want it to end here.”

Hope is studying his Papa’s columns now. He

is reading all the papers he can. He will do
what he has to do, so his Papa’s work will not
die with him. Hope is not afraid, what
happened to his father only decided him
further. He will write because he believes
someone must show the good and the bad, he
believes in what his father did, he will write
where his father’s column used to be, the way
his father used to write.

Hope will begin soon. He’s only waiting for

his press ID.

***

With reports from Kiri Dalena. Email at

pat.evangelista@ gmail.com.

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