Murder and mayhem

It’s my late night television fare of choice, when I wind down with a nice cup of tea. However, it is not my preferred breakfast fare, to go with my pan de sal and morning cup of tea. It is one thing to try and solve multiple murders on TV – you’re assured that within the hour everything will be explained and the bad guy/s will be caught – and quite another to read about them as news, to have them happening right in my country, my city... my neighborhood.

Since the start of the year, murder has been the order of the day. It started with idiots firing into the air as they rang in the new year, in their drunken stupor forgetting that the law of gravity had not been repealed.

The uproar over the death by stray bullet of a little girl, as well as the not-so-headline-grabbing death and injury of other stray bullet victims, quickly gave way to news about a murderous rampage as a man shot up his neighborhood in Cavite, going from house to house firing indiscriminately, until he was gunned down.

Two days later, as Christendom officially ended the Christmas season with the observance of the Feast of the Three Kings, a still unexplained “coplan” (case operation plan) was carried out – by police and military operatives – in a hail of gunfire in Quezon province, and when the dust cleared, 13 people were dead, leaving as many unanswered questions as there were spent shells scattered on the ground.

Soon after, a young Tsinoy businessman was shot dead mid-morning in San Juan City, a few steps from the bank where he had just withdrawn almost a million pesos in cash. And just last week, a mother walking home from church with her daughter was shot and killed in Quezon City.

All these despite the election gun ban imposed since mid-January. Since when did we become such a murderous people, when a dispute is solved by the barrel of a gun, when you can shoot someone, in the light of day and in a crowded street, without fear or hesitation? 

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Yikes, it’s campaign season again, when mayhem reigns. For the next 85 days we’re going to be bombarded with all kinds of offal and epal. I dread being assaulted daily with the kapal muks of candidates plastered on posters, tarpaulins and billboards all over the place. Driving around the metropolis is stressful enough without having to endure these eyesores.

I looked long and hard at the 33 candidates for senator, and as of now my list is made up of only one candidate that I am surely going to vote for, six maybe’s tending to yes, five maybe’s tending to no, five I do not know from Adam, and 16 I will not, definitely not, vote for. It’s not very promising, I know, but I hope that in the days to come, when I learn more about the candidates, I may change my mind and consider more positively some of the candidates.   

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.   2 Corinthians 5:14-18