The Butcher goes to Jahannam

Patricio N. Abinales

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The Butcher goes to Jahannam
He will have to stay in Hell for a while: 58,000 years, his fortune teller whispered to him while he was laying comatose at the Kidney Center. One hundred for every person killed in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao, on November 23, 2009.

He did not wait for long to see the white light beckoning him to approach it. He had been hovering over his hospital room for a bit, watching his relatives wailing, his doctors commiserating badly (they probably knew who he was and what he did down in Maguindanao), and the security detail deathly (pun!) bored. 

Then the light shone on him, as if telling that it was time to leave this world and enter the first of 7 doors of Jahannam. 

The damn room was hot and he could feel his entire soul burning! As he tried to endure the excruciating pain (yes, souls can feel pain, stupid), he noticed 6 shapes approaching from the end of the room. It was the souls of Eduardo Lechonsito, his wife Cecille, co-workers Mercy Palabrica and Daryll de los Reyes, their driver Wilhelm Palabrica. Anthony Ridao closely followed them all. Ya Allah! God where are you?  (WATCH: 58 seconds

Lechonsito and Ridao approached him and with sad eyes asked: “Ay Andal, bakit mo naman kami sinali sa away ninyong mga warlords? Wala naman kaming kinalaman doon? Sana nag-text ka kay Unsay para pakawalan kami.”

(Oh, Andal, why did you drag us into the fight among the warlords? We don’t have anything to do with it. You should have sent a text message to Unsay to set us free.)

“Kasi alam mo ang ginawa sa amin? Pinaligiran kami  ng kanyang kasamahan at sabi sa amin, ‘Sundan ‘nyo ‘yung convoy!’” Lechnosito told him. Ridao added: “Yong isa sumakay katabi ko at sabi, ‘Kita mo yong umaakyat na mga kotse papunta sa parang bukid? Sumama ka doon!’”

(Do you know what they did to us? His men surrounded us and told us, “Follow the convoy!” Lechonosito told him. Ridao added: “One of them sat beside me and said, ‘You see that car headed to the area that looks like a field? Go there!”)

He told Lechonsito and Ridao that he did not know they were not part of the Mangundadatu convoy. Unsay never told him who they were; he just said on the radio, “They’re all here.” How could he know that he also included these folks? 

Cecille Lechonsito gently nudged her husband to the side and asked him, “Andal, several of Unsay’s men grabbed and raped me and as one of them was on top of me, he forced my head to the left and told me to watch my husband die. ‘That way you will know how it feels when you experience pain and pleasure at the same time, bitch!’ I cried out as the men in our car were gunned down at close range. Then after he was done, the man took out his kris and slashed my stomach, telling me, ‘Maniguro lang tayo na hindi ka mabuntis sa akin ha? O sige, magsama na kayo sa kabilang buhay (Just make sure you won’t get pregnant with me, ok? Join each other in the afterlife)!! Bye, bye!’ I lost consciousness then and next time I opened my eyes I was here. Why did you and your sons do these to us, Andal?” 

The one thing about souls is that when you look at them, you also see them in the last state of their physical appearance. Mrs Lechnosito’s stomach was still open, her entrails dripping out, while the upper left part of her husband’s head was gone. He counted over a hundred holes in Ridao’s and Palabrica’s “bodies,” while De los Reyes was holding his distended left shoulder and hand with his other hand. He could not talk. His jaw was not there anymore.

And if he has to stay here longer, then he can work out an atonement strategy that will make qualify him in the next group Allah will save and bring to Paradise. He was optimistic about this. His grandson showed him an Islamic site that said Hell’s function is to really help people purify themselves of their bad deeds so that they will be fit for Paradise. Astugh-fer-Allah! Allah forgive me!He cried to Allah to get him out of Hell as fast as he can. One imam told him that Allah has no plans of keeping people in Hell permanently. So, even if his sins are not forgiven nor has he atoned for them, he still has a chance to get out of Hell. 

But he cannot be completely optimistic about this: there are still 6 doors ahead of him, and he knows he will have to face those journalists and the Mangundadatus and her relatives. And there is that dreaded seventh door – he had no idea what kind of punishment awaited him.

As he was heading to the second gate, he turned around to see that Allah’s angel was taking the 6 out of the gate. He could smell the scent of sampaguitas outside the gate. They were heading to Paradise. 

He, however, will have to stay in Hell for a while: 58,000 years, his manghuhula (fortune teller) whispered to him while he was laying comatose at the Kidney Center. One hundred for every person killed in Ampatuan town on November 23, 2009. More years will surely be added once his past crimes will be made public. Those are long years, but he noted that soon his sons will join him. Then maybe the stinging rebuke and the burns from the cauldrons will not be as bad anymore. Yur-Hamok-Allah. – Rappler.com

Author’s note: The Greeks called Hell gehenna, and the Quran says it has 7 doors with boiling craters meeting you as you go in. In the seventh door, a tree called the Zaqqum stands and the hottest cauldron of all. 

 Patricio N. Abinales is an OFW. 

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