“Most insurgents have a political side to them” – Jack Keane
For most of us the April 19 incident in Toboso is a day no one wants to remember. A bloody day that wiped out lives. And, whether that fateful and dreadful day was a legitimate encounter or a massacre, depending from which perspective you look from, what cannot be refuted is that 19 lives that were lost cannot be brought back anymore. Barangay Salamanca in Toboso, a northern town in the province is now home to that infamous day that in modern times is an unexpected degree of such a tragedy.
THE HUMAN COST
The debate continues. The Philippine’s armed forces call it a “legitimate encounter” while rights’ groups denounce it as “massacre” highlighting a few young individuals they call students, journalists and activists. As the plot thickens, more worrisome are the more than 600 residents who are now displaced from their homes, hounded by fear caused by the tragedy. And, how the propaganda of both sides runs on various platforms is meaningless to them. They now dig deep, whether they can go back to homes or or not – this comes with no answer. They fear for their lives because both parties perhaps distrust them anymore, and they are in their unsafest state. What is evident is that, whether they take side or not both the NPAs and the armed forces can easily brand them as enemies. A clear and present danger.
For the casualties, highlighted were the young ones who lost their lives in the most untimely manner – intelligent and perhaps, game changers but all are gone all at once. Call them “terrorists” brainwashed or even more than intelligent enough to advance their ideology fitted perfectly to that of the CPP-NPA or they were simply “researchers” and “students” caught in the crossfire and were massacred is now a narrative slowly fading. But make no mistake, they left one of the biggest lessons the young generation needs deepest introspection. Undoubtedly, Alyssa Alano, RJ Nichole Ledesma, Lyle Prijoles and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem deaths demand justice together with 15 others. While they are a great loss but definitely, not to the CPP-NPA movement but more so to their families and the society as a whole the wheel of justice must start to roll in no time at all. But I tend to ask, “what if they were not there, what could have been ahead of them?”
GOVERNANCE CLEAR VIEW
The tragedy is not a mere insurgency problem borne out of the impoverishment of the marginalized in the hinterlands but a recognized challenge in governance. This is a significant and hard lesson on accountability, public safety and protection and the preparedness of the concerned local authorities including the local government must be at the forefront especially if the concern are human lives. Unfortunately, the local government where it happened has long been a “haven of insurgency” mainly because of the vulnerability of the community members.
From whichever side we look, the tragedy and its implications need no rocket science to conclude that the biggest losers are the local community. While they may have become sick and tired of a promised liberation and ironically some of its members may suffer the same fate from NPA alleged killings. Equally, they are hounded by the same thought and feeling over the government forces. This provides the government other than the armed forces a hard lesson to prepare and deal with this problem in the future against this more than a lifetime problem of insurgency that is largely structural and institutional in the governance system.
LIFE MATTERS MOST
The Toboso tragedy is not measured who won because lives were terribly lost. It was not a matter of who is telling the truth, because truth, whether it has started to unfold or not, is only part of the whole truth that covers all sides including the truth in our hearts and our minds. There is no such thing as half truth. That is propaganda that many have mastered with a prominent element of biases.
And while we demand swift justice for the loss of lives of the Toboso 19 we must remember that justice does not start and end in Toboso. It is the result of the aggressive policy of the government against insurgency but at the same time it is also the catastrophic impact of an ideology pushed among the vulnerables and idealist youth that a society can only be changed through a “protracted people’s war” yet remains a failure after more than 50 years. A total failure where lessons are never learned but only perpetually cut short the lives of many more RJ, Alyssa and Lyle.
That I am most certain.*
