Justice!

Lighting candles for justice. On November 23, 2009, at least 57 persons were brutally murdered by gunmen in what has become widely known as the Ampatuan (Maguindanao) Massacre. Most of the victims - local politicians, their supporters, lawyers, and journalists - were part of a convoy accompanying politicians on their way to formalizing their candidacies for the forthcoming national and local elections. The incident has gained worldwide condemnation not only because of the sheer atrocity and impunity by which it was carried out (allegedly upon the orders of sitting government officials), but largely because of the huge number of mediamen in the body count (at least 25; the largest number of journalists killed in a single day in recent history).

The woman and child above are among the citizens of Koronadal City who gathered downtown on November 25th to show their indignation of the killings and say a collective prayer for the victims.

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Note (Nov 2010): Casualty figures for journalists killed in the incident have since been pegged at 34; excluding one (1) whose body is still missing.

Santa Cruz of Cagayan De Oro

I had the chance to visit some points of interest in Cagayan De Oro City just this Sunday past. I was with a group of bloggers who went for a city tour after attending the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit which happened the day before. Among the first stops was CDO's catholic cathedral, more formally known as St. Augustine Metropolitan Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro. The cathedral was originally built in 1845 but was destroyed during World War II a hundred years later. It was rebuilt in 1946.

The photo above shows the Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) located right at the facade of the cathedral. This wooden cross was erected in 1888 by the Augustinian Recollects.

The structure behind it is its modern cousin :-)

Signos?

Took this photo one late afternoon on September 30, 2009, while I was just outside the national high school campus of Koronadal City in the Philippines. This and the sudden gust of strong, wet winds and a power outage moments later, sent people into a mild panic.

The paranoia is forgiven. Four days prior to this, typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) had just swept the island of Luzon and ravaged Metro Manila and nearby areas with the country's worst flooding catastrophe in 40 years; and weather people had just tracked another super-typhoon (Pepeng/Parma) brewing east of northern Mindanao.

School's out

You wonder where the people of Koronadal - the city being landlocked - get their daily source of cheap protein. I have the answer - they get it straight from their own public market!

"School is out" for these two common food fish of the Filipino - the bilong-bilong or moonfish (above, in B&W) and the tulay of the scad family (below) as they lie to serve their purpose in this circle called life.

Joy Ride

Good thing they were all seated. I could have titled this photo, "The circus is in town", had one stood up on one leg and placed the baby on his shoulders. I took this photo in October of 2008, while cruising the highway in General Santos City. Lest you accuse me of being reckless myself, I was not the one driving my car.

Old sew

There's a tailoring shop in Koronadal City awkwardly named Aurora Sari-Sari and Marketing Center. It's where I took this photo of an old sewing machine. I remember my mother (who's about to turn 79 in a couple of months), who used to sew our clothes using a similar but differently-branded tool. She hardly uses it now as its already too laborious for her to just push the thread into the eye of the needle.

End of the road

I had to stop when I saw this motorcycle ablaze in the middle of the highway in Tupi, South Cotabato sometime in April 2009. The driver was beside me helplessly watching when I took this photo. He escaped the mishap unscathed but was out of words as to what happened.

Freedom

"We only ask that freedom be returned; we ask nothing more but

we will accept nothing less." - Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr.