Remembering the Jabidah massacre

So much has been said about the Jabidah massacre, which is remembered every March 18.  It was an unfortunate incident regarded either as massacre or as myth. Whatever, it belongs to the past and should be forgotten. If yearly, we remember the sad past, the time for healing will never stop as wounds open again and again.

If the Jabidah massacre did indeed happen, lives of young Moro Muslims, secretly trained to reclaim Sabah by force, as President Ferdinand Marcos had designed, were all wasted. It is unclear what lesson we learned from the Jabidah massacre. To this day no relative or loved one of the dead recruits has spoken up.

The Jabidah massacre must never be repeated and those in power must not wield their power for personal or political gain. That has led to much of a disaster.

If the Jabidah massacre should be remembered at all, it is to call both Christians and Muslims to be united in prayer and to put to rest the pain it brought upon the nation and Moroland.

—JEROME B. PANTOJA

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