Yellow Stars, Blue Stars, Dead Stars by Prospero Pulma Jr.

Yellow Stars, Blue Stars, Dead Stars by Prospero Pulma Jr.


First, Pacquiao painted a blood-splattered mosaic of busted blood vessels and flesh beaten to a pulp on Miguel Cotto’s face and we, Filipinos, glowed like little yellow stars for the pugilist was the first to win boxing’s Holy Grail. Then, CNN picks Efren Penaflorida as its Hero of the Year, and we, Filipinos, burned like little blue stars for the Philippines has again recognized the teacher as a hero. Then, some Maguindanao warlord did a Slodoban Milosevic, and we Filipinos imploded into dead stars, devouring all hope that Philippine politics is crawling away from its old haunts, the cesspool of intrigues and slaughterhouse of broken limbs.

Then, Malacanang sees the butchers only as boys who pelted glass windows with rocks and nothing else, so a mad scramble ensues to call on men neck deep in the blood of tingi-tingi drug dealers and rugby boys/cellphone snatchers. Though as devilish as the warlords, they hunt vermin who prey on the law abiding, small but vermin still. The challenge comes to the men, mad from seeing Justice repeatedly defiled by due process and technicalities, to come to Maguindanao and remind the local Slodobans that Justice is not always the blindfolded lady holding the scales, that sometimes it turns into a witch who buries those who cross her in graves that she herself would not remember, that its enforcers are not always judges in clean robes but butchers too.