This painting is called Where the Burden Falls, created as the cover artwork for the April 2025 issue of Mithi Journal, the literary journal of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), with the theme Chronicling War and Reimagining Peace.

For many of us, war exists only as headlines, brief flashes of fear we can scroll past. But the suffering falls on the people who actually live through it. In the 21st century, in the digital age, they carry an added weight: the responsibility of recording their own pain in the hope that the world will listen and help. They are denied even the privacy to grieve. Silence risks erasure; if they do not speak, their stories and their lives are treated as though they never existed.

So when we encounter calls for help and action, when we confront the uncomfortable truth that something must be done, we must ask: Where does the burden really fall?