The names of University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman Student Councilor Alyssa Alano and photojournalist RJ Ledesma, a University of St. La Salle-Bacolod alumnus, were trending on social media, calling for justice after their deaths during a military operation by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) at Toboso, Negros Occidental on April 19. The incident resulted in 19 casualties, who became known as the “Toboso 19” and “Negros 19.”
The AFP immediately tagged the encounter’s victims as New People’s Army (NPA) combatants, amid their rather slow and vague confirmation. Regardless, independent and on-ground accounts show otherwise. Nine, including Alano and Ledesma, were revealed to be civilians by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on April 28. The recently concluded national fact-finding and solidarity mission led by human rights group Karapatan also attested to the killing of civilians with testimonies from Toboso locals, who also shared that they faced military intimidation.
While multisectoral organizations and student councils, including the DLSU University Student Government and Lasallian activist groups, continue to echo pleas for justice, government and military supporters are squalling a different cry. “Corned beef” was a prominent choice to mockingly describe victims brutally killed by the AFP.
These debates and calls go beyond political disagreements. They expose the moral decay plaguing many Filipinos, prompting them to praise and jeer the untimely, unjust deaths of their countrymen. This is not just observed in AFP vs. NPA clashes; recall how supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte cheer for fatalities in the drug war and the targeting of journalists and activists with the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
For a religious country like ours, Filipinos are expected to be moral citizens. Killing people is against Christian belief, yet some celebrate the deaths of those like Alano and Ledesma. Amid the hypocrisy, morality and political ideology can coexist, as long as they are applied with cautious judgment.
But in the Philippines, our politics use this linkage to form a misaligned moral hierarchy, where seemingly moral conditions can be achieved through immoral acts. For example, some may justify killing suspected criminals, or frankly put, any opposition to the government, to ensure that safety is enforced and felt. Yet safety, in that sense, is a misconception.
This misuse of morality also forms an illusion of discernment. In between developing stories and investigations, particularly on the affiliations of Negros 19, the sneers of “corned beef” also smacked on unverified labels such as “NPA” and “communist,” especially for UP students like Alano.
While there was a confirmed communist presence, as declared by the CPP themselves, once again, civilians are glossed over. These I must recall in an effort to return humanity into their stories. Alano, UP Diliman’s Education and Research councilor, immersed herself among farmers to learn about their struggles in the region. The people’s scholars endure the ripples of misinformation, insults, and red-tagging after her demise, yet they continue to prove the full potential of education: when it is used to help and serve those in the periphery.
On the other hand, Ledesma documented human rights violations and community displacements in the Negros Region as a photojournalist under various alternative media outlets, as mainstream media often fail to reach the centers of struggle and extensively cover the daily hardships of affected communities. While Lasallians are not usually perceived as activists, Lasallian education is centered on helping the marginalized, a principle Ledesma embodied in his work of bringing underreported stories to light.
Their predicament shows the longstanding taint over the word “activist,” insulting their tireless efforts to improve our country’s conditions, from which our current liberties arise from their dire sacrifices. Their historical affiliation with armed revolutionary movements should not justify placing unfair, unverified claims of them being military rebels.
With some Filipinos mocking the deaths of Alano, Ledesma, and other victims aside from the Toboso 19, it is clear that morality in our country provides a skewed outlook; morals are only considered and practiced when it is politically convenient. It is truly a disheartening and disgusting sight to see individuals prioritize political ego and celebrate tragedies and injustice, and how this may still be so moving forward.
Their humanity is erased in favor of political propaganda. As a result, we lose sight of our own sense of humanity and critical thinking. We may know the facts and recognize that malpractices have occurred, yet we find every means to make them seem justifiable.
Political discourse must be about looking at the bigger picture beyond centers of conflict, stringing associations of those involved, and drawing conclusions. It should probe the systems that brought these people to the countryside in the first place: to uncover poverty, displacement by private or local powers, and violations of human rights.
Instead of focusing on which forces asserted their dominance, we must turn our attention to how to make a country that does not need to be exposed to injustice and killings. If we seek to truly uphold our morals, then we must direct our mental and psychological rigor toward the more obvious forms of abuse and corruption in our governance, recently ever-present with the commotion at the Senate.
When confronted with heavy news and harsh revelations, we can keep ourselves in check of how we search for causes of conflict, and especially in recognizing the complexities of the individuals affected. Loss of life is surely more than statistics, and especially more than political propaganda. No political ideology can ever justify dehumanizing banter over lives lost.
And so we are left to ask: for such godly people, do many more activists need to die to summon their humanity?