Persisting masscare

There are no words for this,”  Washington Post’s  Alexandra  Petri  wrote  after a gunman  mowed down  20 kids at   Sandy Hook Elementary School in  Connecticut ,  USA . Their  ages ranged from   5 to 7 years.

“Unspeakable massacres…are always different,” she added. “This time,  there were children, terrified, being told by police officers to close their eyes. But  there’s a ritual to it now….”

In the  US , 88 out of every 100 have guns. In early 2011, Americans preferred stricter enforcement by a 57 to 29 percent margin in a Washington Post-ABC News poll. How this debate plays out will be followed by Filipinos who  feel  the  pain.

In Bethlehem, a paranoid Herod sent soldiers to kill all boys  two years old  and under. There were screams too.  But  the words were provided by a prophet  six centuries earlier.  They  re-echo in  every slaughter of innocents .

“A cry was heard in  Rama, sobbing and loud lamentation,’ Jeremiah  wrote.  “Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

Yet, Sandy Hook and   Bethlehem   are dwarfed by  the  carnage that plays out  daily  here. Out of every  thousand kids born, 18 will  die before their first birthday. In  ARRM, infant deaths crest at 42. Compare that to  Malaysia ’s  five.

Filipina  mothers, dying at childbirth, are more than quadruple that of Thailand.  Last year, 15 mothers died every day due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth—up from 11 three years back,  the National Statistics Office  reported.

Underground abortionists account for 12 percent of maternal deaths here, the UP Population Institute estimates. Roughly 560,000 abortions are induced yearly, social anthropologist  Mary Racelis  wrote  earlier. Only 90,000 mothers get post-abortion care. About half of 3.4 million pregnancies were unintended.

Many infants are borne by ill-fed mothers in job-short families. There are more undernourished children and nutritionally at-risk pregnant and lactating mothers then there were seven  years ago, the 7th National Nutrition Survey found.

These are preventable deaths. Yet, there is no outcry. Why?

Because death stalks these kids  mostly in city slum hovels or farm shacks. Their  burial  shrouds are usually out of sight As a result, these  coffins  blend into the woodwork. The rich man who feasted daily never noticed the  pauper  Lazarus  scrounging for his left overs  So, the massacre persists.

Flabby responsible parenthood programs whittled maternal deaths  too slowly. Responding to unmet family planning needs   could slash  maternal deaths by almost a third.   More can be done to save mothers from premature graves or kids from being orphaned.   “We are each other’s harvest … each other’s magnitude and bond.”

The traditional   novena of dawn masses, meanwhile,  started  Sunday  in the run-up to Christmas 2012.  Fray Diego de Soria asked the Pope in 1578  to  permit  Misa de Gallo.  This accommodated  Filipino   farmers who tilled  fields  after daybreak.

Today, many   call center agents to newspaper distributors, who end work before cockcrow, join families attending “Simbang Gabi”. So do many doctors and nurses preparing for the next work shift.

This year’s  rites, however, are tense. Catholic bishops and lawmakers are locked in a bitter debate after the Lower House approved   the reproductive health ( RH) bill.  President Benigno Aquino III certified  the  bill as urgent.

The bishops assail the measure as illicit.  Lobbing thunderbolts  doesn’t work up a sweat.  But  supporting  support natural family planning clinics  in  dioceses does.

From the Vatican Council’s decree Apostolate of the Laity” to Benedict XVI, church teaching  urged the laity to respond “creatively to modern society”,  Racelis noted in an Inquirer op-ed column. They did so. Among other things, they  contested  martial law  dictatorship,  corruption of the Estrada and Arroyo administrations to  championing  indigenous people and Muslim minorities.

Speaking in their areas of expertise,  discerning lay Catholics support the RH bill, , Racelis said:  “This is our commitment as laity co-responsible with the clergy as People of God.”

“After  25 years of pastoral and social  involvement,  I see the  Filipino  family as very much at risk.” Jesuit sociologist  John Carroll wrote. But not primarily from contraception. Infidelity, multiple families to drugs, alcoholism and sheer poverty are the main destructive forces.

“Only putting to rest the acrimonious RH debates will permit church and state to cooperate on pressing issues. Add to that   climate change, Typhoon Pablo, relief to  social justice for  indigenous peoples, etc

The RH bill deadlock  occurs in a society  ruled by  “pecuniary decency”.  Here, hard   cash is the sole yardstick of value. Doors open depending on  your  car model or  your checkbook,  “Net worth equals self worth”. Ask Marcos justices who played ball with coconut  levy cronies.

A  society  that  pegs the worth of a man on his credit card will betray the poor. Its privileged members rewrite their definition of necessity.  Look at Imelda and Bongbong. Meanwhile,  food, medicine –  even human warmth – run perennially short. “

So, was the seething fury of Nobe l Laureate Elie Wiesel’s prayer justified? “God of forgiveness”, this Holocaust survivor prayed at  Auschwitz  death camp rites, “do not forgive the murderers of children”. Indeed, “there are no words for this.”

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