When will the killings end?

What happened to Nanay Sonya and Frank Gregorio is horrendous, but admittedly (and whether we admit it or not), many of us are used to it. It jolts us, shocks us, angers us, but we move on after a while — a bothersome thought considering the more than four years of waking up to headlines of killings. It happened to Winston Ragos, to Kian delos Santos, and to countless faceless and nameless others whose lives were reduced to statistics, which increase or decrease depending on whom you ask. The uniqueness of this latest killing was not in the piercing cries of grieving relatives or the protracted scream of traumatized neighbors. It was the relative nonreaction of the minor in the background. Any human being with an ounce of humanity, of sensitivity, regardless of age, will be moved when head shots are fired and when people fall to the ground lifeless.

There was no such flinching, no such surprise, no such horror.

I fear becoming a parent who creates an environment that engenders such a reaction, and I hope that interventions can be made. It is downright worrisome that real-life murder can be stared down by minors who do not even bat an eye. Ultimately, it goes back to how the elders — first the parents — do their job of formation.

What is happening? When will this end? #StopTheKillingsPH

PHILIPPE JOSE HERNANDEZ
pshernandez@ust.edu.ph