Just a few minutes after this photo was taken (in which I looked very happy, as you can see), the driver asked us to remove the coverings we just wore. The road was dusty and so it was the most fitting thing to do if we didn’t want to end up looking like espasols. We found out later, as the driver narrated to us, that while we were up there in the community we visited, one man asked him to relay the message to the government forces (through text) that there were five sightings of you-know-what and that they should send rescue or back-up for a supposed encounter.

So that’s why. The driver said he just wanted to avoid any conflict or trouble along the way particularly because my colleague really looked like one of “them”. I can say this now, not just because of previous knowledge or common sense that “they” actually looked like this but on this trip as well, I was fortunate to have seen two of “them”—one on our way up on a motorcycle and one on our way down riding a horse. My colleague, I have to say, kind of looked like them especially with the shades on.

I’ve always been interested to hear their side of the story, personally and not just through another person. I’m not a leftist or right-ist(what? is there such a term?) but I really just want to hear it from them once and for all, for the simple reason that one cannot judge or give an opinion with good basis if that person has no first-hand encounter or knowledge about whatever it is that he or she is writing about.

It’s always easy to make a big fuss about something or give your comment or opinion. As people say, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But there are baseless, shallow, unnecessary opinions and there are good ones. Of course, I choose to have the latter.

Hopefully I will be back. And when I do come back, I’d be able to go to this certain barangay, in which going there would have to pass through “their territory”. By then, I would not only be able to see them upclose more than ever but hopefully get to meet one of them.