The 1,424 killed in Davao
How then can we do right by the 1,424 killed and thus deal with human rights violations?
The press conference last February 20 of retired police personnel Arthur Lascañas led to a flurry of questions. But I think a vital question was missed, one significant to people who call Davao home.
The question is this: now that there are more firsthand confirmations, regardless of the source, that anti-criminality activities could be the main reason for 1,424 deaths in Davao City from 1998 to 2015 documented and reported by such groups as the Coalition Against Summary Execution and Fr. Amado Picardal CSsR, how could we do right by these victims?
They are victims because unless the fundamental laws and institutions of the country are altered, suspects remain so and their innocence assumed until the courts pronounce on their guilt. They are also victims many times over because of the circumstances of their deaths and their social standing.
What happened that made it conscionable for Davao to turn its backs on victims who were young, poor and in all likelihood misguided? Dabawenyos who subscribe to the pledge in the city hymn to be “tapat at totoo” and seek to pass on a city that tries to get closer to “pangarap ay matamo/kaluwalhatian mo/lungsod ng paraiso” cannot be dismissive of the 1,424 lives lost.
Based on the City Wide Social Survey (CWSS) Series 6 undertaken by the Ateneo de Davao University from October 28 to November 3, 2016, Dabawenyos still consider drugs and drug trafficking to be the greatest threat (36.35 percent) followed by terrorist threats/bombings (32.8 percent). Drugs also came in second to poverty in Dabawenyos’ appreciation of the top three problems of the city. Further, it ranked next to corruption in the reckoning of top five social issues.
Simply put, for Dabawenyos, illegal drugs is still a top problem despite nearly two decades of aggressive campaigns against it, including extra-judicial killings. Had the killings happened in another locale and not Davao City, would there be more readiness to recognize them for what they are—that they are the brutal manifestations of an extra-judicial strategy that may have short-term success but cannot be endorsed as a long-term effective solution?
But it is not as if Dabawenyos have become accustomed to killings. The sixth CWSS also indicated that killings (31.27 percent) was the third greatest threat for Dabawenyos.
When asked about knowledge of EJKs, 76.35 percent admitted knowledge of it. On whether they favored alleged EJK, 15.4 percent said they strongly agreed with it, and 30.32 percent agreed, while 6.51 percent strongly disagreed and 24.6 percent disagreed. But 33.17 percent refused to answer.
Because Dabawenyos are aware of and concerned with EJKs, how then can we do right by the 1,424 killed and thus deal with human rights violations that cannot even be said to be of the past because they are still very much part of our present?
I hope Dabawenyos reflect on this question and endeavor to answer it, lest we end up being a city whose sense of security is built on the blood and bones of victims.--