MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Why did the second day of Christmas, Saturday, emit a Black Saturday vibe? The somber mood  was almost Holy Week-like, traffic being remarkably light, parks and streets emptied of strollers. Annus horribilis, much the worse for children suffering from the unexpected consequences of the lockdown, sexual and domestic abuse, difficulties of distance learning, being trapped in deadly fires. Christmas 2020 has been unusually cruel to children. Just when you thought a policeman brutally killing a woman and her son was the worst news of all, we learned about another man who executed his two small boys by hanging on Christmas Day. Now the boys’ grandparents on their mother’s side are demanding a reinvestigation of their daughter’s “suicide” by hanging the day before. What’s a “fair” and “just” punishment for a mass murderer? How long before karma hits the guilty? Confession is good for the soul, but the man has no soul left to lose. Herod, who ordered the mass executions of babies, was the poster boy for this type of monster but it was years before he got his comeuppance. What’s behind the awesome array of massive disruptions all around us – earthquakes, storms, floods, oceans of mud, landslides, volcanic tantrums, the wanton rape of forests and mountains, vegetation and habitation seemingly wiped out by a vengeful hand – it’s not only or all climate change. Heaven is trying to tell us something. “As above, so below.” We rebel against heaven at our own risk. (The Chinese language has no word for the divine; the closest is heaven.) Sins committed against children, the pure and innocent, are against nature; Nature, our mother, is reacting. In the view of lawyers, the father with the blood of his family on his hands is not guilty of the killings, not yet, video images notwithstanding. After he surrendered to police, charges of parricide were to be filed against him. Under the old Constitution, parricide or the killing of a parent, spouse, or child was a heinous crime punishable by death. Movies and TV dramas show how a plea of insanity can save manic murderers from the gallows, a case of civilized society dealing with human beings who are no longer human. Pray 2021 will be a kinder year to the little ones.