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BATANG MINDANAW: Ate Mara

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/26 December) — At about 7:10 pm on December 9, news about the bus bombing in Central Mindanao University was broadcast on GMA. That got my attention but I just brushed it off and continued doing my project in Filipino. At 10:58 pm I received a text from my classmate. “Lex wala na si Ate Mara.” Mara was Marielle Achacoso, 17, a CMU student and one of the 10 people who died in the blast.

I felt my body temperature decreasing. I practically heard glass slowly shattering in the distance, just like how it is in the movies.

I befriended ate Mara when I was in second year since we were on the same party when I ran for 3rd year representative. We weren’t exactly close, but she was someone that I felt comfortable with. She radiated a pleasant aura and she had this beautiful smile where her eyes turned to adorable crescents. She was all in all a good person who definitely did not deserve to die such cruel and sudden death. Not just her, but the rest of the victims as well.

They could have had led successful lives, got married and built a happy family, met different people from different places. They could have had experienced kissing someone under the rain. They could have had gone to concerts of their favorite artists. They could have had lived happy lives. But that’s all that’s left of it now—mere could-have-hads.

When a thought is forgotten, it dies. Let us at least not let the thought of Marielle Achacoso, Kim Lloyd Valiente and all the other victims of the bus bombing die. Let us remember December 9, 2014. Let us remember that all lives matter. (Alexandria M. Mordeno is a fourth year student at Bukidnon National High School in Malaybalay City.)

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