i live in the city. but my relatives live in a province 8 hours away from manila by bus. at the moment, the people in my place are experiencing something they thought belonged to the days of martial law. my mother sent me a text message while i was enjoying a rock music festival last night. they (not specified who) are cheking residence certificates at night and those who do not have are beaten. so there is now a mad rush to secure residence cetificates so much so that the local issuing offices run out of forms daily.
this is not the first time this is being done. it has been done already in nueva ecija, a province near manila. this is carried out in an effort to fight insurgency being that those who do not have residence certificates are tagged as New People's Army rebels. my mother said one pregnant woman had a miscarriage when her husband was beaten in front of her. in this climate of fear, no one wants to speak. i just wrote this without even knowing its consequences. my mother does not like me to do so. but i feel hurt that this is happening to people whose only dream is to be able to plant and harvest their crops and enjoy the simple blessings of rural life. it does not even get a mention in the national papers. perhaps they don't even know it is happening.
yet this situation impels me to ask why can people be searched this way without warrants at night? and why do they have to be beaten if they do not possess a residence certificate which we get actually only if were applying for work or filing official papers? i thought this belonged to a distant past. the younger generation knew this only from the stories of our parents. now, many of us are experiencing it again.