Mamasapano carnage victim's wife seeks overseas job to make both ends meet

MAMASAPANO, Maguindanao – Convinced justice remains elusive as ever, a widow of one of the victims of the infamous Mamasapano encounter” is seeking employment abroad to bring her family out ofthe bondage of extreme poverty.
For Sarah Langayen, widow of slain farmer Badrudin, justice for her slain husband continue to evade and her focus now is how to raise her five children and provide them decent lives.
Anytime this month, Langayen is scheduled to fly to Oman to work as house help, ready to fight loneliness of being away from her children. Badrudin, a farmer, was found dead, his body riddled with bullets in the aftermath of the bloodiest encounter between police elite unit and Moro rebels in Barangay Tukanalipao on January 25 last year.
Her husband was listed as among the collateral damage” victims when state forces, after putting down the country’s most wanted bomber Zulkifli bin Hir, a Malaysian terrorist wanted by the United States, clashed with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters and other lawless elements. Her mother will take care of her children while she’s away, she revealed in an interview. Langayen lamented the government aid she received after her husband perished was not enough to improve her family’s living conditions.With no farm to cultivate and with limited educational attainment, Langayen’s way of ending poverty is to work overseas. Life remains the same, it is still difficult,” she said.She aimed to live away from Mamasapano after her overseas stint since the pain of losing a loved one will always haunt her and the children.
Langayen is not losing hope.The 29-year-old woman hoped that upon her return the Mamasapano carnage is already a closed chapter of her life and time to move forward.While she appreciated the financial and material aid from government and non government organizations, Langayen stressed her family cannot rely on dole outs forever. (Ferdinandh Cabrera)