An eclipse on the value of life?

The brutal killing of Bantay Dagat head, Elpidio Jojo de la Victoria, has shocked many Cebuanos. It was not the act itself that jolted them, after all, violence has been an almost daily occurrence in their midst. It was the victim himself, one of Cebu City's scintillating key officials whose quality of service has touched the lives of many people.

Talking of violence, for more than a year now the equivalent of Davao's death squad has been on the warpath in this City. Latest count of victims: 140 and still counting. When will the blood-letting stop? Those killed were not big-time criminals. Most were former inmates confined for petty offenses. Some were drug users, others were small-time thieves. But just the same, they were "liquidated" like chicken.

Did these victims deserve what they got? Certainly not. Human life is sacred. No one, but no one, has the right to "terminate" life - be that of a notorious criminal or of a small-time offender.

Our Christian faith teaches us the sanctity of human life. Such faith has ingrained in us the belief that every person is a child of God, a being so important that no less than the Son of God came and suffered to cleanse him of sins. In fact, the entire liturgy of the Holy Week is built on the great event of Christ's passion, and man's redemption. Last week as we flocked to churches and took part in liturgical functions we were one with the Lord in his suffering and death as we were one with him too in the glory of his resurrection.

That is why the murder of De la Victoria as well as that of the 140 vigilante victims cries out to high heavens for justice. One was a serious minded public servant admired by many for his dynamism and drive. The others, however, were social misfits whose annihilation seemed to have been condoned even by Christian Cebuanos, the very same people who beat their breasts in moments of mea culpa during the commemoration of the Lord's passion.

Outside the pale of faith it is easy to understand why we have sympathy for De la Victoria but none for the other victims. Yet if our childhood faith is worth anything we ought to lament also over the death of the latter. Justice is meaningless without mercy. Jesus himself taught us this when he refused to condemn a confirmed adulteress, or later while hanging on the cross, when he invited a convict to join him in paradise.

Obviously, this lesson has bounced off our minds despite the many Good Fridays in our lives. As in other secular circumstances our response to the series of killings in our midst has not been in keeping with our vaunted Christian culture. When push turns to a shove it is our Christian infrastructure that gives in first while the ramparts of our worldly claims remain intact.

Thus for one victim we grieve but for the one hundred and forty we have nothing but indifference. Is the personhood of this one worth more than the personhood of the one hundred and forty? Is his blood thicker than that of the others? Are the sorrows of one family greater than those of the scores of other families? Sadly, our reaction has run counter with what Christ taught us in Calvary. Surely, he did not die only for the likes of the Bantay Dagat head but for all men, in fact, for sinners especially, like the sinners on whose bodies we senselessly pumped slugs of caliber 45. I did not come to call on the righteous but on sinners. Jesus reminded his disciples at one time.

Our situation reminds us of what Pope John Paul II calls (in his "Gospel of Life") a shadow of "moral darkness". Present-day society, he says, suffers from an "eclipse of the value of life" and because of this "murder, war, slaughter and genocide" occur. What has brought about this situation? Man's loss of the sense of God, which loss makes him insensitive to man's inherent dignity and the sanctity of human life.

Whence is hope? Christ blood, says the Holy Father, is our hope. His death and resurrection, fully understood and internalized, gives man moral anchorage based on the truth of man's preciousness.

But in the context of our situation, how can this truth be internalized? Mere presence in the Church's at Holy Week rituals is no assurance of renewal. Mere pious posturing at Sunday Masses is no guarantee either of an authentic Christian sentiment. Renewal takes time and needs the synergized efforts of the home, school, and the Church. In the meantime, we have to bear the eclipse on the value of life in our midst.