Dear Editor,
Hello there. I’m Neil Flores, a Spanish-Filipino doing community work here in Davao for 5 years now. I’ve lived with Filipino OFW’s abroad, as my mother has been one of them. I’ve been reading Sunstar for a long time now, but this is my first time to send something like this. I hope I can share these thoughts with people.
Let’s assume that Mary Jane lives. What now?
Would she drown in a sea of cash donations from people who, while sympathizing with her plight, do not take concrete action to help the millions more who suffer greater hardships than Mary Jane on a daily basis?
Would she be able to lead a normal life, after having a record in drug peddling? The issue of whether the allegations are true or not is irrelevant. A smudge of a drug case in one’s labor history doesn’t help one land a job, especially when one is just a high school dropout.
Will people do more than just share photos and pleas for Mary Jane’s life on Facebook, and actually step into more concrete political action to call for reforms in the country?
The moment the execution order for Mary Jane is lifted, she now has to face another execution, one that she may never free herself away from with: the poverty in everyday life in the Philippines, which slowly kills people while making them suffer on a daily basis.
So we ask the question: which is better, swift death by firing squad, or slow death by living a poor life?
The answer is not among these two common options. It is to live and struggle for a better future.
Saving Mary Jane will never be enough. To call for the junking of the labor export policy of the Aquino administration, which I highly agree with even when my working hours do not allow me to march with them militants in the trees, is a good step forward. Provision of stricter measures to ensure the welfare of our OFW’s abroad? A good thing too. Call to oust a lousy President filled with lies and totally weak in defending the people’s rights to the dubious justice system of other nations? Might be the best thing to do.
I stand with Mary Jane. But I fear that saving her life, if it were possible, might not be enough. If we do not act, many more people will become like Mary Jane, and those who do not will live to suffer slow, painful deaths under governments who are insincere in their claims to serve their constituents and people who cannot do more than share Facebook photos.
Neil Flores / Davao City
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