Mere words mean nothing.

“Yan na kurso mong ‘yan, walang katahimikan. Kung saan ang kaguluhan, ang masaker-an, dun ka.”

Father blurted out Thursday night over the news, as the remains of the Maguindanao massacre victims were exhumed from where they had been cold-bloodedly buried by God-knows-who. Now I know who’s to blame for my paranoiac tendencies. So paranoia runs in the blood.

He kept spitting those words out while his attention occasionally drifted to me, engaged in a book review, to the television screen. I looked at him nonchalantly for a second and went back to work. What’s the big deal, anyway? So I am taking up journalism, but I’m just on my second year, for crying out loud mi padre! Nothing to worry about yet. I’m not even sure if I’ll be a full-fledged journalist after, say, six years. How can you ascertain that I won’t be an out-of-school youth or a single mother the next year or the year after the next?

So the killing, it’s perverse, no sane man would not condemn it. (And no doubt the minds of the perpetrators are more perverse.) But danger is part of the fieldwork, if not the untimely death. All we can do now is appeal to the good nature of the government to take action immediately and to the crime operatives to handle the corpses with care.

Simply gruesome. (Photo source: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/)

Hell, what if someone’s still breathing under that heap of rubble and gets crushed by the backhoe? Kidding. But I’m pretty sure Dr. Kay Scarpetta would be very mad had she been able to witness how they’re distorting the evidences. I’ve had enough of Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels that I can practice forensic pathology right at this moment. Boo.

However, these are mere words, and to borrow what Jeffren had said way back, mere words mean nothing. It’s darned easy to denounce a thing with words. But the truth is that, the monstrosity of the massacre has not yet sunken deep within me. True, I am a journalism student, but now, everything is in a limbo. We’ll cross the bridge, Father, when we get there.

How cliché.

Help Wanted

Fidgeting in my seat—palms wet, mind reeling; nerves taut, heart pounding—then Miss Khristine called out my name. Shoot, I uttered. Classmates cheered. I cringed. What the hell were they thinking? And there was this guy on my left who kept saying that he was looking forward to my turn to speak. Do not, I mouthed. Didn’t I mention months ago that I loathe public speaking to its last atom? Hate statements do not have an expiry as far as I am concerned. But since this subject is included in my curriculum, what more can I do?

You see, people, simple reporting and reciting in class are way different from extemporaneous speaking. So please. Spare me, and everybody else from your great expectations. There’s nothing more excruciating than adding insult to the injury. So please. Had I not braced myself for your ruthless eyes scrutinizing me as I stood there, composing myself and my thoughts on local and foreign shows, I could have cried in spite of myself. So please. Do not give me the impression that you are still those blithering idiots I used to nitpick.

So that’s just about all I can say regarding the freaking thing that transpired yesterday. From the little that I recall of it.