Remembering Paulo

Jul 27, 2008 03:29

In the late 1980s until the early 1990s, the Communist Party of the Philippines launched a nation-wide and Party-wide internal purging of members suspected of being government and military agents. Estimates vary on the number of people who got mowed down by the rampaging political paranoia that swept the leadership of the Party. An organisation ( Read more... )

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gamiila July 26 2008, 21:44:56 UTC
I am so, so sorry -- for you, for your friend, for his family...It must be so hard for them, twenty years on, to still not know what really happened to him, and where they might find him. I will keep them in my thoughts, and hope that last night's ceremony served to provide them with some small measure of peace and closure.

Reading your speech, your friend almost comes to life off the page. 'Homo hominem lupus est', it is true; but it is equally true that as long as there are people who remember us, we will never be truly dead...or disappeared.

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binsoup July 28 2008, 23:14:38 UTC
Paulo's widow and daughter said that they are ready to move on, to try to let go of the hate that they've felt for the last 20 years. The daughter is now 22, and have never spoken in public about his father until recently when she showed her university undergrad thesis/short feature film about the "desaparacedos." The wife also have never joined any of the public gatherings for her husband until the tribute the other night. She said that for the longest time, she felt that everyone who've been connected to the movement is guilty of either directly causing his husband's death or making it very difficult for the family to recover Paulo's body. The sisters are divided on the matter; some are ready to exhale and some refuse to cede belligerence ( ... )

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