Innocents’ Day

There is a prankish Filipino practice that on Innocents’ Day, one has to “fool” a friend or co-worker by telling a too good to be true fabricated story with serious demeanor or with even a prop. It is the equivalent of the April Fools’ Day of the West.

The real day of the innocents however, was gory and evil when innocents were massacred to eliminate any threat of Herod’s throne.

Herod is still alive and kicking in the Philippines today ordering the massacre of innocents in the form of social injustice, inequality, bad governance and leaders; the powerless who only deserve to be dehumanized in all of its forms instead of being respected as a person with human dignity.

And in parallel with the Biblical account, how many politicians were murdered when they pose as a threat to one’s power? Ninoy Aquino and Andres Bonifacio were among the famous but right in our cities and towns, how many were silenced permanently before their voice of reform is heard?

And if and when the Reproductive Bill becomes a law, how many innocent human beings will be denied to exist and live among us and share the blessings of this country and our love? Who are we to say that a human being has no right to exist through artificial contraception by enacting a law that makes condom available like galungong (a poor’s fish).

We must not forget that the innocents who suffer brutality, violence, persecution, oppression and dehumanization who are in jail, hospital or cemetery will face their oppressors and persecutors. In a different world, time and space, the real guilty will answer “What have you done with your brother [Abel]?”

The innocents, will echo the last words of the Judge on the cross, “Forgive them for they did not know what to do.”

Instead of the pranks which could turn a face red, remember the “red” the innocents shed not only in Herod’s time but right in our time.-30-