By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
Community immersion was an activity for our previous semester that I looked forward to the most. More than the accomplishment of our thesis or any other subjects, the act of going to marginalized and underserved communities to assess their needs and how we could help sounded so much more appealing. To me, it was an activity that was the most human-like. Helping those in need and giving back to society, perhaps it is this human-like soul at it’s core that made me attracted to it in the first place.
Sadly, such an activity was not accomplished.
Some time later, the news was filled with students and community journalists being killed by soldiers in a town in Negros Occidental as they were reportedly conducting a community immersion. Meanwhile, the military claims they were all combatants of the New People’s Army. Communist rebels.
At this point, every person who goes to the far flung and exploited communities are rebels. Anyone who dares to even see the poor farmer’s point of view and tries to help is a communist. It may be hard for others to believe but there are those who still carry the value of empathy and attempt to reach out to these marginalized communities. They live amongst them and collaborate with the locals to find ways to improve their communities.
Basic empathy is even starting to get lost on many. The label of a rebel is automatically put on those who trek to such areas. And dead students are downgraded in value simply because they are suspected rebels. Everybody parrots the same old words, “they deserved it”, “why were they there in the first place”, and “rules should be obeyed”. Their should only be respect to those who actually tried to help those ignored and exploited by their own government.
Empathy to your fellow Filipino is starting to fade, when it should be ingrained as deeply as family values and practiced as often as breathing. When we see people actually hold on to it and practice it through helping others, the least we can do is follow their examples and avoid desecrating a life that has truly served God.
There are many communities out there who are in need. In need of help to improve their lives and defend their lands. But there are only such few who make the journey and live amongst them, immerse themselves in a world that is so beaten and exploited.
It was never a sin to be amongst the poor, more so when helping them. Those in unform and backed by man-made government authority are not better or in a higher position than the poor who can only wear tattered clothes just because they called them rebels.
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