Letter to Zara Albarez
Dear Zara Albarez,
I don’t think it is right to call you the deceased and to grieve.
I know it is the real purpose of those evil people in the dark who have ended your life to frighten the Negros people, keep them in their houses and erase their memories about you.
In the Philippines, when such killings are conducted, all the villagers are so scared that they stay far away from the scene or run away. I heard the news from Missionary Jones Gallang that the villagers gathered and shouted, “Here is Zara, Zara is dead!” to prevent further damage to your body. It reminded me of the women who had gathered in front of Jesus’ grave and mourned bravely.
That is right, you were a resident of Negros Island who truly loved the people of the island, a woman who did not turn a blind eye to the deaths and disappearances of others, a single mom, a political prisoner and a prisoner of conscience who stood bravely before the persecutors, and a lawyer who informed the court of the deaths of innocent people.
(photo: Karapatan Alliance Philippines)
I can understand why citizens all over the world are saddened to remember you at this moment.
This era of Philippine history is getting too long, wiping out the weak with politics of fear.
It is wrong to say that your death will be remembered for the future of the Philippines.
We remember only this moment until today, the moment full of sorrow for the dead.
Since the Arroyo administration, people have been murdered and disappeared. The religious people, lawyers and activists who protest against tyranny have been severely suppressed. The power that kills people is fascist, totalitarian, and evil terrorism. However, citizens mourning in the face of apparent social killings transcend national boundaries. That’s why we pledge our solidarity in the presence of your death.
(photo: KASAMMAKO)
Although it is a minority, the history of civic solidarity continues here in Korea as well as in protest of the long-standing political massacre in the Philippines. One summer, I do not know when, more than ten years ago, dozens of Korean and Filipino friends gathered in front of the Philippine Embassy in Itaewon to protest against the public persecution of the Arroyo regime and met with the ambassador to deliver a joint protesting letter. How incompetent were the political officials who could not say anything in front of us at the time.
Instead, I found true beauty in the way people held hands for the lives of the poor. After the rally prepared in Korean and Filipino languages, I remember sitting around a small shop run by a female immigrant and having a simple lunch with fish and rice from the Philippines.
(photo: KASAMMAKO)
“If migrant workers are free to work anywhere, there is only freedom, laughter, and love in front of those who resist persecution and oppression.” The reason I remembered the moment when I shouted, “Bravo!” in such wonderful words is because of the conversation I had with you and Rev. Kim Min-ji of the NCCK, who grieves more than anyone else in the wake of your death.
“Zara, aren’t you tired of living like that? No, I have friends fighting with me, my beloved angel, my daughter, Jed, who I love, it’s alright without a husband, all are fine with the people I love.”
Zara, you visited poor residents in Negros Island who had nothing to eat with the donations from abroad just before you were murdered. But soldiers and the police had been trying to destroy and deprive your holy life as they said, “You have no right to hand out rice.” For whom are they working? What was the source of the spirit with which you could overcome fear?”, I ask to myself when I listen to your daily life on Negros Island. It makes me think again.
(photo: Zara Alvarez)
Shin Seung-min, Jones Gallang, Jung Jin-woo, Yi Ki-ho, Kim Min-ji, Na Hyun-pil, Adam Shau, Chat Dimano, these colleagues in Korea who cannot merely grieve over your death are gathering. They are your friends who know best that, “we will all die if we overlook death and turn away from it.” They are people who share collective pain. And just as Kasamaco, a Filipino migrant community in Korea, has informed Korean citizens of political persecution even if they live away from their families and get tired of their labor, they will not turn a blind eye to state violence in the future.
The crowd in the dark, trying to take away even the right to mourn, do not know the truth that love is the source of your life and struggle, and that it is a star shedding light on an unjust world. If they had known, they would have been afraid of the light, so they would have bought guns, bought people with weapons and money, put on military uniforms, and shouted in front of the people, “Look, we’ve arrested terrorists who’ve broken the peace of this country,” to continue their rule with fear. They are the real terrorists as they are obsessed with doubts and worries about the future and are not ashamed that their guns and knives are covered with blood. We know that the government’s red-tagging against you has another intention especially as you have definitely not committed crime or injury by using violence to overthrow the country.
Just before you were killed, Randall Echanis, the head of the peasant organization in Quezon City, was found murdered. In Manila, Cavite, Iloilo, Mindanao, and Negros, the human dignity you wanted to protect and the sufferings of the afflicted are once again pushed like the deep sorrow to the front of the unceasing news.
So I would like to conclude this condolence with your message of consolation for those outside the prison even though you were locked behind prison bars.
“We will all soon realize that one voice is noise, but more voice is the sound of freedom. Everyone sings popular songs, acts to end political persecution. Victims want justice.”
Finally, when your 11-year-old daughter, Zed Kaira, who is the only one left and grieving the most in the face of your death, misses her mother, we will stay together in a love that remembers your life and struggle in our hearts in which the borderline has disappeared. I love you.
(photo: Karapatan Alliance Philippines)
– Cha Mi Kyung (translated by Shin Seung-min)
