Giving a human face to the “insurgency”

CHEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Rappler, GMA News Online, and ANCX for giving a human face to the insurgency in reporting the death of Kerima Lorena Tariman.  A member of the New People’s Army (NPA), “Ka Ella” Tariman was killed in an encounter with government troops in Hacienda Raymunda in Silay City, Negros Occidental on Friday, August 20. She was 42.  Her death was only one of three lost in the encounter: Private First Class Christopher Alada, 31, and Kerima’s comrade, who was identified only as “Ka Pabling.” 

Tariman, a former managing editor of the Philippine Collegian, the student publication of UP Diliman, was a mother, a poet and artist. Her published works include her own collection of poetry, “Pag-Aaral sa Oras.”  Tariman once wrote for the news periodical  Pinoy Weekly, which focused on the crisis and fall of the Estrada presidency. Media reports included tributes from her father, Pablo Tariman, a journalist and well-known music critic, her teen-aged son, and former colleagues in the arts. 

Media reports often leave the NPA’s fatalities, like Ka Pabling, largely unidentified. The military is the main source of these reports and the information they give do not include biographical notes on the victims on the other side of the battle, leaving it to the NPA to notify the next of kin. 

With Kerima, however there was enough media interest. Her father is one of media’s own, her death therefore a loss to be shared. 

And yet one should ask why media should simply ignore the need to identify fallen rebels, whose deaths should be noted as more than just a number in the body count. 

Such attention does not necessarily mean  sympathy for the “enemy.” Whoever they may be, they remain Filipinos who had chosen a cause for which they were willing to die, a choice that may deserve deeper understanding.

Perhaps by media’s  giving a more human face to the decades-long conflict in the countryside, a peaceful resolution can be reached between the government and the Philippine mainstream Left.