A Dreadful Feeling
I’m not sure what I’m feeling this morning, still lying in bed, staring at my smartphone whether it's sadness exactly, dread, or something else. But it’s heavy. It’s a terrible weight that’s settled over me since Monday, as I’ve been trying to make sense of the world’s unraveling these past few days.
Last night, I finished watching "Unknown Number: The High School Catfish" on Netflix. It's a documentary so disturbing it left me hollow. A mother, Kendra Licari, spent two years anonymously tormenting her own daughter with vile messages, even urging her to take her own life. She manipulated the investigation, framing other teenagers to deflect suspicion. And when she was finally caught, her explanations were incoherent and evasive. Yet somehow, she received only a one-year sentence. One year only, after all the psychological violence that shattered lives and poisoned a community. It happened four years ago, but I just watched it and it feels new, because crimes like this one can still happen. But the whole point in this is how justice anywhere in the world can be so unfair.
Then I turned my attention back to my own country, where the Senate has just undergone a political coup. Senator Chiz Escudero was ousted, and the has-been comedian Tito Sotto reinstated as Senate President amid swirling allegations of corruption and flood-control project kickbacks. The impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, previously shelved, now looms again. It’s hard not to see this as a calculated move to shield powerful figures from scrutiny, to preserve a system that rewards impunity, knowing how close Sotto is to Romualdez, and knowing that he ran under the unity team of the administration.
And then came the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. He was shot while speaking at Utah Valley University, a conservative activist known for defending women’s sports against male transgender participation. Shockingly, he became a victim of the opposite hate he had warned against. I remember watching a transgender speaker on YouTube, pleading for safety in a society that increasingly vilifies their existence, but ironically the tragedy of Kirk’s death at the hands of wokeism only deepens the complexity of this cultural war where conviction, identity, and violence collide, and you draw a line and the one who crosses it will always be the one playing the victim.
This morning, I logged into Facebook and saw another recent headline that made my stomach turn. Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who fled the war in her homeland, was fatally stabbed on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her attacker, a black man with a long criminal record, had been released without bail. She came seeking safety, and instead met a brutal end in a country that failed to protect her. Another irony is that black people always complain of racism everytime they get accused of heinous crimes.
Then there’s the mysterious deaths of Yu Menglong, a popular Chinese star, similar with what happened to Boupendza, a Gabonese footballer playing in China. They both fell from several floors in their apartment buildings on different occasions, with the Chinese actor dying just yesterday. Authorities are investigating whether it was suicide, accident, or homicide. The ambiguity is chilling because, even fame and success offer no shield from the dark abyss.
It’s a frightening world and physical safety feels increasingly elusive. Whether in public spaces, political arenas, or even within families, danger lurks in the proximity of your own shadow. But what unsettles me most is the state of my own country. The normalization of corruption is sickening. The erosion of justice is obvious now as the quiet release of drug lords back into the streets is being implemented. All of it feels like a slow descent into madness. Just recently, in my neighborhood, a known drug pusher and addict was freed without parole and without surveillance. He walks freely now with no accountability, as if nothing ever happened.
This is how absurd, how dangerous, how surreal the world has all become.
