The bad and the ugly in Rody’s war

AFRIEND from my college years now based in Cagayan de Oro messaged me for help. His activist friend working in an LGU 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 the mayor’s political rivals.

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

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

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

Don’t take this as an anti-Duterte rant. Let’s be clear that crime and drugs are an enemy to 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 is asking. He understands the frustrations of the public of a justice system that plays double standards on the poor by favoring the rich. But the casualty on the shortcuts to stopping crime is the life of innocent people. “One innocent life who is summarily killed is one innocent life too many,” says Olalia.

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

But there is one lesson coming from Davao City’s handling of this spate of killings that the nation has to understand, and that is the citizens’ vigilance to address this issue of crime. When summary killings hit Davao City years ago, movements from lawyers, academe, women and children’s groups and activists urged then Mayor Duterte to stop this killings, and asked him to let the institutions work for a better approach that is called restorative or corrective justice.

Indeed, the city government and various groups then have 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 citizens do their part with vigilance to take of their communities’ welfare, and not turn the reign to the vigilantism of a shady few. This experience also shows that Duterte is not a messiah, but is part of the bigger solution that needs our participation.

Let’s pray for vigilance that can stop this madness as early as now, before we lose friends and family.