Xylem, a special child brutally killed

 HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province - Xylem who was recently thrown the market steps by a vendor and killed here recently was a younger  sister to everyone in this community.
    Xylem addressed every older male “daddy” to the amusement, tolerance or surprise for those who don’t know her, stranger or resident of this tourist town.
    Xylem is a wide-eyed little girl who asks “tay” or why in response to  one’s  statements that  you may refer to her  as a normal child but something in what and how she  says her language  tells you  that she is a special child.
    Spritely and little for a 12 year old,  Xylem is regularly seen in town talking to people in her monosyllabic language in a  happy mood  or wanting a piece of  cake that you might be eating.  
    She sits or stands near you and asks  ‘tay’ for very statement that you say if you are in the mood and have the time for replying to her questions. Otherwise you may have kindly urged her to leave you if you are talking with someone or busy enough.
    Especially when it’s late in the evening and she has to go home. The last time I saw her was around 6:30 in the evening when I was talking with a friend in a café. I told her to go home as her mom was waiting for her. Most of the time she was seen within the vicinity of the market compound where her mom manages a cafeteria.
    It was the same market compound where she started her 24-hour breath in earthly existence before succumbing to severe traumatic brain injury as direct cause of her death with mauling as antecedent to the cause of her demise as her death certificate showed. 
    I came to know some few days after I told her to go home that she was thrown hard by accused, vendor Wilbur ‘Day-asen’ Timpac to a cemented pavement near the road and above the steps going down to the fish market.
CCTV footage showed one throwing a child from an elevated position down to some four-meter distance away and a man hurrying to see what was thrown. 
    Xylem was rushed to St Theodore’s Hospital with abrasions on her back and hematoma on her back head and swollen lips and referred to Luis Hora Memorial Regional Hospital and some 24 hours after ended her breath.
Thinking of her small frame must have been an easy and disastrous fall 6:20 p.m. of Nov. 17.
    The question why she died of mauling prior to traumatic brain injury and severe is a question the police is still investigating.
Village child
During the wake of Xylem, village elder and relative Julio Agpad from Tulgao, Tnglayan Kalinga asked people of Sagada why the incident happened to a defenseless and innocent child despite people of the town being educated and Christians.
    Xylem’s mother Karen comes from the Tulgao tribe of Tinglayan, a culturally knit tribe who consider all children as their children and all men as brothers and all women as sisters and every child a daughter or a son to care for.
And that includes teaching children to act accordingly much as any act that a person does is the face and responsibility of the community especially among the matured and older ones. And with that is a tribe protecting and carrying the responsibility of a tribesman’s actions.
Indeed, for “it takes a village to teach a child”.
    And following that premise, that hideous act that led to the death of Xylem not only fell on the accused but to the ‘ili’ as one.  
    For that is how the tribe where Xylem’s mother comes from culturally behaves.
    A child is the child of a tribe. For a child has been raised by the village and if he or she goes wayward reflects to how the community where she belongs and is a part of raised her or him. And if a child behaves accordingly and brings pride to the community is something for the tribe to be proud of.     
    Twelve-year-old Xylem comes from a mixed bloodline of Sagada and Bauko in Mountain Province from where his father Moses comes from and Tulgao, Kalinga from her mother Karen.
Special child
At 12 her age, Xylem has come to survive in this world.  Among some of her classmates who bullied her, she did not mind them.  She mingled with those older than her, her mother said in her eulogy. Must be that was her defense to avoid younger ones and those with same or near her age who bullied her so she stayed closer to older ones who understood her.
    Xylem is a special child and that is an aggravation to a crime.
    That carries questions of not doing harm to a person with disability. The application of what ‘inayan’ means as a cultural belief of Sagada is not to do harm to another lest harm shall befall the family of the offender.
     That comes along with consequences of crimes committed as provided in the revised penal code and violation of RA 7610 or the law on the protection of children much more so with a special child.
    How the mind of an oppressive and cruel offender could think? Had it been just any child, could have the accused thrown any child to her/his injury?

    Why was Xylem thrown that resulted to her death? An act in its most inhuman, insensitive, inhuman, callous, hideous, cold and oppressive of an offender who may consider less and unfortunate an unfortunate child. No normal person in his right mind and composure would do such a cruel thing.

    The accused was immediately jailed at the municipal hall with initial charges of physical injuries and final charges of murder of a child who died from severe traumatic brain injury and mauling as antecedent to the crime, her death certificate reveals.

One people

    Detention of the accused must have calmed somehow the people of Sagada and the Tulgao tribe considering the accused was jailed.

    It’s a shame that such an incident happened to a defenseless and innocent child, Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative and Sagada elder Jaime Dugao said. 

    And on behalf of the community of Sagada, elder and former mayor Thomas Killip along with Poblacion Patay barangay chairman Dennis Lopez took that responsibility in the presence of the other elders and Xylem’s family and relatives from Tulgao and the townspeople who were then around during the wake of Xylem.

    Xylem’s relatives from Tulgao attended her wake in Sagada where Xylem’s immediate family resided since her birth. Xylem’s tribemates and family in Tulgao with their presence during the wake was considered by the people of Sagada as their brothers and sisters much as there was intermarriage between the two tribes

    People from Kalinga particularly Tulgao come to Sagada to sell blacksmith or rattan made products like liga-o (rice winnower) and farm implements.

    Migrants come to do farm work here while young people of Kalinga, Tulgao included have been coming here to study in high school. While some are married to Sagada folks.