![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() They wanted the audience to confront the reality, to feel the pain that’s been numbed by a headline culture. These photographers didn’t want to water it down. In high definition, I see the victims’ wounds, their oddly twisted limbs, their blood and brain matter sprayed across familiar-looking streets. There’s even a short video of grainy security cam footage in which a masked motorcyclist pulls up next to a man in an alleyway, shoots him point-blank in the side of the head, then drives away. Grayish-green corpses stacked like firewood in an improvised morgue. Its a classic case of the adults are useless so the youngins better do something about. A body with its head covered in a dirty cloth left in a pile of garbage on the side of the street. However, I wanted to talk about how adults were presented in the story. In Patron Saints of Nothing, Randy Ribay’s intense, poignant story explores questions of identity, homeland, family, and the complexity of truth. Sisters gathered around their baby brother’s body lying in its small casket. The mysterious death of a cousin beckons us to the hot, humid streets and countryside of the Philippines, where the country is politically divided by President Duterte's controversial war on drugs. ![]() A couple, half on the ground and half tangled in their moped, their blank faces turned toward the camera and sprays of blood on the pavement behind their heads. A crowd looking on, emotionless, as police shine a flashlight on a woman’s bloodied corpse. A woman cradling her husband’s limp body. “It’s the photos that hit me the hardest, though. ![]()
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