Maguindanao massacre site hallowed by victims’ blood

Exactly two years after the merciless slaughter of our countrymen in the quiet hills of Maguindanao, I find it ironic and also fitting, that the lines of a famous speech, written almost 300 years ago, would still ring true in our time. Allow me to take the liberty of paraphrasing the unforgettable words of American President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address:

“In a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men and women who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to understand. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work, which they who died here, have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to dedicate ourselves to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a rebirth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

How this speech eloquently echoes my exact sentiments in the aftermath of the Maguindanao massacre remains a paradox.

—WEANA ROCA, leiweana@gmail.com