The bad and the ugly in Rody’s war

This comes at a time when we are seeing distressing news on the war against drugs and crime

AFRIEND from my college years now based in Cagayan de Oro messaged me for help. His activist friend working in an LGU (local government unit) was surprised to find his name included in a list of suspected drug lords.

He vouches that his friend is clean and is a victim of false information made by a mayor’s political rivals.

The message comes at a time when we are seeing distressing news on President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against drugs and crime. At first, news of drug users and peddlers surrendering en masse, the relief of top ranking police chiefs for allegedly protecting drug lords and the cleanup of the National Bilibid Prison were reasons to cheer.

But then, things have turned deathly serious. A college student in Manila was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was riding a tricycle when a suspected drug pusher also took the ride and was chased down by vigilantes. The suspected drug pusher was shot dead and the student was shot as well.

There has been quite a number of victims of circumstances and mistaken identity. Thus we have to stop cheering and ponder: Is this how we want things to be?

Don’t take this as an antiDuterte rant. Let’s be clear that crime and drugs are an enemy of the people. But the thing is, can we stop people from taking the law into their own hands or making shortcuts to the law?

This is what human rights lawyer Edre Olalia of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) is asking. He understands the frustrations of the public over a justice system that plays double standards on the poor by favoring the rich. But the casualties in the shortcuts being made to stop crime are the lives of innocent people.

“One innocent life summarily killed is one innocent life too many,” says Olalia.

Duterte and the police hierarchy have said that these summary executions are not part of their campaign against crime and may have been committed by syndicates that want to cover their tracks. We give that explanation the benefit of a doubt.

But there is one lesson that we can pluck from Davao City’s handling of this spate of killings, and that is citizens’ vigilance and their willingness to address the issue of crime.

When summary killings hit Davao City years ago, movements from lawyers and the academe, women and children’s groups and activists urged then Mayor Duterte to stop these killings and asked him to let the democratic institutions work for a better approach that is called restorative or corrective justice.

And so the Davao City Government and various groups worked for the rehabilitation of drug dependents, children in conflict with the law and families victimized by crimes or summary killings. The key here is for citizens to do their part by being vigilant of their communities’ welfare and not turn a blind eye to the reign of vigilantism by a shady few. This experience also shows that Duterte is not a messiah but is merely part of the bigger solution that needs our participation.

Let’s pray for a stop to this madness as early as now, or before we lose friends and family.-- from Sun.