No copping out

ONE issue I have is how resolve the contradiction that is President Rodrigo Duterte. I find light in the way we support or criticize personalities not programs given the absence of ideology-based political parties.

Because of this, well-meaning folks run the risk of trashing good programs when they trash the author's ways. They need to realize that the powerful few who trash President Duterte's ways do so to stop programs that threaten their positions of dominance. Hence, I decided on this: support what I am convinced are the relevant programs, but critique what decent society thinks are the equivocal ways, of the President. Thus:

--I agree there should be healing. But it is getting increasingly clear that burying the dictator, simply because the law allows it, is not going to result in healing but in more division.

I myself have personally found the path towards the Lord's way of forgiveness, i.e. without conditions. I am moving on without, of course, excluding myself from the fight to prevent the Marcoses from revising history and re-assuming power.

But I am only me. President Duterte and the Supreme Court should listen to the many other victims of Martial Law and the progressive millennials who are not able or will not allow a move-on unless certain conditions are met like sorrow, atonement and non-burial of the dictator's corpse in hallowed ground.

--So far, however, I have no problems with the way the President is healing the gaping wound between the Philippine government and the CPP-NPA and the MILF/ MNLF rebellions. Talking justice and peace trumps warring for justice and peace anytime.

--The fight against drugs is something else. While critical to the nation's progress, the egregious disrespect for sacred life in the drive against drug lords, the apparent violation of basic rights albeit of suspects and the threat of suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus must hit a sensitive chord in the nation's legal and moral fiber.

This cavalier attitude towards law and morality must change. Social problems must always be resolved as much as possible within legal and moral bounds.

--I welcome the President's move to dismantle the local oligarchy. Political analyst George Monbiot blames oligarchies for the mess (poverty, wars, climate change) the world is in. (Mayor Tomas Osmena said about the same thing lately.) A free market is their savior-god and unbridled competition for a hedonist's heaven their morality. It is easy to see how the powerless are left out of this equation.

I just ran out of space. Anyway, while I back the President's main programs I must critique his increasingly questionable (both legally and morally) methods. That's how I cope because there simply is no copping out.