Poetic Justice

Jesse and Bunso are dead.

Jesse was a gunman in the Ampatuan Massacre and would-be star witness against the main culprits; Bunso, a robbery and homicide suspect. Now, both are dead.

Jesse was gunned down in Maguindanao by an unidentified gunman whose motives "were still unclear" to the police. He died June 14 and the blotter said it was just another case of killing, like a case of neighbors fighting over a branch of a tree trespassing to another fence. That's how killing in Maguindanao has become, petty and mundane.

Bunso got himself identified via a closed circuit television (CCTV). He was one of the riding-in-tandem suspects in the robbery and killing of a marine engineer on June 17. He was arrested last Tuesday. I even saw him on the evening news denying the allegations. Two days later he underwent inquest proceedings. On his way back to the police station and he, handcuffed and escorted by three armed policemen, allegedly tried to grab the gun of one of them. Yes, he in handcuffs. For that, he received three gun shots in the head. And died.

Are these two cases a matter of poetic justice? Later, when I'm stripped of my humanity, I will decide.

But what I'm sure of is that both Jesse and Bunso were once children. They had mothers. They fell in love. They once dreamed of somethihng big. They once prayed. They were once told not to steal candies or to be quiet for someone was asleep.

No, none of the two killings is poetically just. And I don't need to lose my humanity to know that.