As I watch the late evening news on BBC detailing the gruesome end to the school siege in Belsan, I can’t help feel mortified that those ‘bandits’ have the stomach to use children, and hundreds at that, as pawns for their deadly struggle.

I have a very Machiavellian attitude towards life but nothing in my sytem can possibly justify their actions, no matter what their cause is, or no matter what losses they have endured in the past.

The parents of those children who were not fortunate enough to live through the incident must feel terribly devastated. Once Belsan resident who lost a 7 year old child summed it up best when he said “It is not right for a parent like me to have to bury my child. As a parent, I should die first”.

On the greater scheme of things, we should instrospectively ask how to prevent such things from happening again. While I believe that a certain amount of chaos and disorder is necessary to create a system of balance, it would not be right to have to see a similar incident unfold again in say, a years time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 4th, 2004 at 6:58 am and is filed under True Pinoy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.