Victims of Irony

This picture was taken sometime in January. Two days before this picture was taken, around three to five kilometers away, a group of soldiers had a firefight with rebels leading to mass evacuation of civilians. In that firefight that lasted at least two hours, no casualty was reported but more or less 200 families had to leave their homes to avoid the conflict. When we went into these communities to pursue the rebels, it was like I am legend in the Mindanao context. Livestocks were running free, houses were deserted and valuables left. It is ironic how such a beautiful place can become a ghost towm in an instant because of war yet none of this horror was captured by any of our local media much more big media outfits. It was merely some tale that only a few of us knew. The day after I took these picture, when I went back to the mountains for yet another pursuit operations, an improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered within the vicinity of the evacuation center where the civilians that were displaced was staying. Meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on with their lives.