Verbal persecution?
By Former Vice President
AN online media report, citing data from the Philippine National Police (PNP), claimed that 23,518 Homicide Cases Under Investigation (HCUI) have been recorded from July 1, 2016, up to June 11, 2018. The figure, the report said, is equivalent to “an average of 33 people killed a day.”
Excluded from the tally, said the report, are 4,279 persons killed in anti-drug operations. These are suspected drug pushers in poor communities, described in police reports and in the news as “nanlaban.” News reports usually show guns, mostly rusty .38s, next to the lifeless bodies as proof of “resisting” legitimate police operations.
The report, if accurate, is disturbing. It contradicts repeated assurances from the Philippine National Police (PNP) that our communities are safer.
Even the President has acknowledged the rising criminality. In a speech immediately after returning from South Korea, he spoke strongly of using “emergency powers” to address concerns over an upsurge in crime incidents.
What prompted the renewed focus on criminality? It seems that South Korean businessmen told the President they were holding off investments “for fear of being kidnapped or killed.”
Apparently, the kidnapping and killing of a South Korean businessman by no less than members of the PNP has shaken investor confidence.
The situation is indeed problematic for the administration. It came to power in 2016 on a single platform of addressing criminality, particularly the drug menace. Criminality, it maintained during the campaign, feeds people’s insecurity and alienates government from the people.
More importantly, the administration emphasized a link between the economy and peace and order. Investors will not put their money in a country where they do not feel safe.
Yet, that is precisely what is happening now.
Normally, a stern message from the President would be enough to energize law enforcers. Yet just a few days after the President made the remark, a Catholic priest, Fr. Richmond Nilo, was gunned down while officiating mass inside a chapel. With this brazen act, criminals seem to be taunting the determination of the leadership.
Father Nilo was the third priest to be killed since December last year. Judges, prosecutors, journalists, and a former mayor and congressman were also killed in the past few months. Primetime television news is cluttered with reports on drugs, crime, killings, and shootouts, reinforcing the perception that peace and order has taken a turn for the worst.
The burden falls on the PNP to take decisive action and address these killings. Malacanang has made it known that it wants these killings resolved. Note, however, that such admonition is now customary, issued each time a highprofile killing is reported.
What concerns me, and I am certain I am not the only one, is the brazen manner in which the killers committed these high-profile killings. If makes me reflect if there are other factors at play.
Is it, as Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas claimed, because of “verbal persecution?”
In a statement issued with other church leaders after Father Rio’s killing, the archbishop urged an end to the “verbal persecution of the Catholic Church because such attacks can wittingly embolden more crimes against priests.”
We should take time to ponder over the statement of the archbishop.
We have lost, it seems, the capacity for civil discourse, the tolerance for divergent views that is the bedrock of a democratic nation. Verbal attacks on some sectors, among them priests and journalists, have been consistent for the past two years. As consistent and as predictable to some are the physical attacks that come after. Of late, the lowly “tambays” have been shamed publicly and online. We dare not imagine what would follow.
But let me stress that it is not only the administration and its supporters who resort to slander, threats, and shaming. Administration critics are as guilty in perpetuating a culture of intolerance and hate, especially on social media.
Yet it falls on those in power to wield its authority to promote decency, tolerance and unity. There will always be critics, but those who wield power must be reminded that a democracy demands not just tolerance for opposing views but encouraging citizens to freely express their thoughts and ideas.
Power should not be wielded to foment hate and division, but to promote peace and unity. It must encourage respect for the law, not unlawful acts. Rule of law, not rule by law. jcbinay11@gmail.com