Maguindanao massacre photos on exhibit

In remembrance of the Maguindanao massacre, 23 images taken by documentary photographer Jes Aznar in Mindanao before and after the grisly carnage are being displayed at a multi-media gallery in Makati City.

The exhibit, dubbed “Under the Lord’s Shadow” opened on Wednesday and will run until Dec.14 at the Kanto Artists-Run Space at The Collective in Makati City.

For Aznar, who has been working as a freelance photojournalist and a documentarist in Mindanao for three years, the exhibit is an attempt to share what he believes is the deeper reason behind the killing of 58 people, 32 of them journalists, in Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009.

“Apart from remembering the massacre, I hope to show the context in which it happened—and why it can happen again,” he told the Inquirer during the exhibit’s launch.

“(In Maguindanao), the people in power can do anything they want and still stay unpunished and powerful. They are not afraid because there is a culture of impunity,” Aznar said.

Members of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, photographers, and artists attended the opening in Makati.

“What I want to do is to dig deeper, beyond the news reports about the massacre,” he said, adding that he saw how exploitation was happening right before his eyes back in 2008.

Aznar said a day before the massacre, he was supposed to fly to Maguindanao to join the local journalists in the filing of the candidacy of then Buluan Vice Mayor and now Maguindanao Governor Ismael Mangudadatu.