The Toboso encounter in Negros Occidental, where Alyssa Alano (“Ka Kikay”), two children, and others reportedly died during a military operation, grieves me not only as a citizen but as a person of faith. I do not see this merely as another security incident, nor simply as another chapter in the ideological war between the state and the revolutionary movement. I see it as a moral wound upon the nation. Whenever young lives are extinguished in the mountains, fields, or villages of our land, something sacred is violated. Human beings are not expendable instruments of state policy, nor are they disposable fuel for revolution. Every life bears inherent dignity. Every death in this long conflict should trouble the conscience of the Republic.
