The Brave Vhema

BONGAO, TAWI-TAWI — I didn’t expect to see Vhema Antham here after her ordeal last year. She is the same Vhema I met few years ago when I was covering the loads of arrival of illegal Filipino migrant deported from Malaysia in this forsaken wharf.

Vhema is still a fighter, still the bubbly smart woman although I noticed that she kept on scratching her wound on her arm. That’s one of the many bullets that supposed to silence her and Enteng.

She survived the ambush, abandoned this town and hid in Metro Manila for a while hoping her case will see a light during the prosecution process. But it never happened.

She decided to return here to follow up personally the case, yet one of the suspects is still at large.

I remember her once telling me that she wanted to arm herself, “in the place like Bongao, the best protection is a hand gun.”

But during our meeting and sort of organizing for NUJP chapter here in her temporary home, she admitted that “even if I hide under my bed, if its my time to die, I will really die.”

Vhema is excited to put up a chapter here hoping that a presence of organized and united broadcasters and radio reporters, “will send a strong message that we are not easily cowed by attackers.”

In her return, Vhema brought her entire family and her husband served as her close-in escort and bodyguard. Her children are all in the care of her parents in law.

~ by julia66 on April 12, 2008.