IT TOOK A JOSE RIZAL TO END THE SPANISH CONQUEST; PERHAPS A DULAY TO END KABACAN’S DAYS OF TERROR

Several comments were posted in the articles I wrote about the killing of Vice Mayor Pol Dulay asking why there is such a great concern over the killing of Kabacan’s second highest ranking political leader when there were other unsolved murders in the past.

These questions indeed are justified.

There is a need therefore to explain why the national consciousness seems to be shaken whenever big political leaders are murdered and very little attention, if at all, is received from authorities by victims who are plain citizens.

Remember the over 300 years of Spanish domination of the Philippines?

Thousands of unknown Filipinos were brutalized and killed by the Spaniards. In fact, three priests, Padres Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, were even executed in public.

But it took the execution of Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado in Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park) to awaken the whole nation which led to the end of the Spanish occupation of the Philippines.

Thousands of plain citizens fell victims to the atrocities of military authorities during the Marcos years but it took the assassination of Senator Benigno S. Aquino II to end the Martial Law and usher in a period of freedom and democracy.

Even among animals in the wild, a plain member of the herd could fall and die by the wayside yet the herd will move on but the killing of the head of the herd will definitely cause panic.

This is the sad fact that bloggers like Amor Muyco and Flaring Shade, who both claim to have been victims of acts of unsolved violence in Kabacan in the past, must understand and accept as a fact of life.

This is not Manny Pinol’s doctrine. This is the universal truth.

Indeed, it is unfair and it only highlights the great disparity between the Haves and the Have-Nots, the Rich and the Poor, and the Mighty and the Weak.

But there is justice in this for the poor, the Have-Nots and the Weak.

It is when the Lives of Great Men are sacrificed that the masses, plain citizens and ordinary people, are freed from further violence, terror and injustice.

It is through the loud thuds of the falling bodies of heroes like Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino that the people of the whole country are awakened and marshaled to fight for their freedom and liberty.

The death of Vice Mayor Pol Dulay, painful and tragic it may be to the family, could yet end the days and nights of violence and terror in Kabacan.