DAVAO CITY -- No light - No picture. And light has different wavelengths that compose its personality, its visibility. But how does one capture a light whose spectrum has been snuffed out by a single bullet to the forehead?

Memory, they say, is borne on blood and bone. And light in memory can be deflected or reflected, bent, absorbed, or systematically filtered to recall the silliness, evoke the sacred or blur the pain.

Now as I brood over what to write about Gene Boyd R. Lumawag, MindaNews' photo editor, I hesitate. What to focus? What to blur? What is the depth of field that I must attain to capture his darkness and light, his gravitas and failings, which I have perceived in various focal ranges?

I was in Cagayan de Oro City when I heard that Gboyd was killed in Jolo at twilight almost at the end of Ramadhan last year. His last footage was that of the sunset. On the foreground was a silhouette of two young men looking behind their shoulders, in that split second of awareness that Gboyd was clicking a shutter taking a photo of them on the pier.

It is not hard imagining Gboyd's reaction when he, too, became aware of his assailant aiming his gun at him. Two years earlier, I had seen my fear reflected in his eyes.

It was also dusk when Gboyd and I were heading back to our home-office that is, MindaNews. We were cruising down his neighborhood in Jacinto extension when from nowhere, a woman ran straight at us, prompting me to slow down the car. The next thing we knew, a man was aiming his gun at us, shoving it closely to Gboyd's face.

You see, GBoyd and I were housemates (girls, eat your hearts out!). He never washed the dishes (except when he was in the Arguillas residence) or bothered cleaning his room. He was a cartoon addict who would rather pass up a date than miss Dragon Ball.

There was no in-between with Gboyd. He could be sweet like spending the whole day strumming the guitar to find the right chords of my favorite song of the week. At times, I wished he were a bug I can spray on with Baygon.

A big heckler, he niggled me about my neck-breaking schedule or my naiveté about the opposite sex. “You will die a virgin,” he would say, smirking. One time I got so peeved, I hit back by re-enacting to our colleagues how he slurred in his drunkenness, “let's get married na” to his Manila-based girlfriend then. It brought the house down. In reprisal, he called me “bitch!” Hah! In a blink, my shoe flew across the room, hitting him hard. We never spoke for weeks.

He was a show off who sometimes got his comeuppance quickly. For instance, a relative from abroad gifted him with a new waterproof cellphone. Gboyd kept bragging about it for days that during the 1st Mindanao Media Summit, which was held at the Pearl Farm Resort in the summer of 2002, he threw his 6250 into the swimming pool, dove in, and texted under the water. When he emerged, hah! the cell conked out.

He was the quintessential Peter Pan whom kids adored. He was the kunsintidor Kuya Void (his own spelling of his name) to Carol Arguillas' niece Jaybee, now 21, whom he chaperoned several times to rock concerts. He was network games guru to Atriu and Nana Cabusao and Jopet Arguillas, and “sword instructor” to Xandro Zarate and Chandor Moralde.

Imagine this: one day, CAT the puppy was nowhere to be found in the MindaNews office. Gboyd and I searched frantically every nook and bush in the compound, calling CAT the canine. Was he dognapped or catnapped? It never occurred to me how mixed up we sounded until I called up Amy Cabusao, Mindanao Times editor, begging her to post an ad about CAT. Good thing Bombo Radyo's phone was intermittently busy when I tried dialing it up.

“I wanna be a Pulitzer Prize winner,” dreamt narcissistic Gboyd, who thought he was so good-looking, with superior intelligence and talent in photography. “That's good, but remember, there is no Pulitzer Prize winner who is undisciplined,” quipped Carol Arguillas, Mindanews editor-in-chief.

Gboyd, who would go on coverage with a hangover or probably stoned, had to be impressed on how detached his first batch of photos of the 2000 All-out War in Mindanao was. “I don't see the exhaustion or feel the pain and fear of the evacuees. Photojournalism requires as much as required in reporting Boyd,” Carol homed in.

Challenged, he captured on photo an Amorsolo-like Portrait of a Family evacuee emerging from the forest after walking for two nights in the dark. It earned him a nomination in the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 2000, as finalist in the Best Photo category.

In December 2001, I was awakened past midnight by urgent knockings on my door. Gboyd was arrested! Without asking why or what happened, my adrenaline was directed towards getting him out of prison as soon as possible knowing how that feels like. I contacted a lawyer and was unmindful of how unholy the hours were, and that I was practically disturbing the whole household.

When we reached the police station, I immediately searched for Gboyd, finding him in a cramped dark cell along with eight or so other guys. He was squatting and gripping the steel bars so hard, possibly hoping it would bend and give him freedom.

Some of those in the press and the photojournalists club were punitive after that, alternating between ridiculing him and his stint with substance abuse, if not totally alienating him. But his family and friends stood by him. Never gave up on him. Photojournalist Alex Baluyut recommended him to the Asia-Europe Young Photographers' Forum in Amsterdam. There were five of them on the shortlist. He would talk about how he was “literally grilled” during the interview via telephone by at least five members of the Philippine Center for Photojournalism. But he must have impressed the senior photographers, he won the privilege to be the Philippine representative to the Amsterdam forum in December 2003. It was the second chance he needed, and Gboyd embraced it fully.

“Gamay na lang gani ta, gi-kuhaan pa gyud ta (We're just a few, and they took one of us), I recall MindaNews' Froilan Gallardo's words a day after Gboyd was laid to rest.

How long ago was it when Gboyd woke up very early (he was a nocturnal) to take a bath because he was going to make a presentation in MindaNews' first strategic planning? He was crazy about Sun Tzu's “The Art of War” then, interjecting quotes about generals and strategies from memory, as we mapped out our survival as alternative media in Mindanao.

We dreamt of empowering, educating and inspiring Mindanawon communities by reporting stories that are accurate and relevant. We also aspired to transferring technologies to the grassroots so they may be able to report their own news and shoot their own photos.

But ours is a difficult path. We are constantly confronted with practical realities of scarce resources - financial and personnel. Others have sought greener pastures. Some plod on.

Gboyd never complained about his meager pay and made do with his available lenses, sometimes filing photos that came out much better than other photojournalists equipped with long lenses and high-end cameras.

During press conferences, he was sure to starve than eat a meal paid by taxpayers' money. He was uncompromising in his craft and his beliefs. Gboyd for all his scruffy, grungy look actually believed in love. “Love exists,” he would say, defending his ground against Jowel Canuday and Claire Dy's deconstruction that it is just a construct.

On his last days, he jotted on his small notebook about summary killings in Davao City. I wonder what was going on in his mind. Was it a premonition? Gboyd was the ninth journalist killed last year, making the Philippines the “deadliest place outside of Iraq for reporters to work in the world” said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

To this day, his killer is still at large. Is there hope? Will justice be served? Indeed, it is so easy to submit to the shadows of cynicism, fear and despair that snuff out whatever light there is. But I must say that light must not only accommodate darkness so it will not be a stranger to it and be smothered by it. Light must continually rage.

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