The politics of Kian

Everybody is talking about the death of Kian Loyd delos Santos. Kian is a teenager from Caloocan City who was shot dead by police in an anti-illegal drug operation. They said he was a drug courier who tried to fight back. But mounting evidence seem to suggest he was not, at least as far as the fighting back allegation is concerned.

I fully agree that this case needs to be investigated properly and those responsible for his death prosecuted, if so warranted. What I do not like is using the death of Kian as a platform to promote personal political interests, signs of which, unfortunately, I am beginning to see. Already, there is a beeline of known political personalities to the wake of the slain lad.

I do not need to enumerate them here because you can very well see for yourself on TV and in the news. I will not be so cynical as to say they are all just politicking. I will not dare take their basic humanity away from them. Maybe they do feel some pang of sadness over the incident and wish to do what they can to be in solidarity with the family of the victims.

But not all of me is willing to go that way. And that is because I was not born yesterday. I have seen this scenario repeated time and time again. The truth is, our politicians have grown adept at feeling genuinely for something and then using that genuine feeling to promote something else. Humans are after all very complex beings. Many Nazis who took joy in exterminating Jews also took similar pleasure in science, music, and nature.

I do not know when the family of Kian wishes to bury him. But if I had a say in it, I would tell them to do it fast. Because the whole thing is fast becoming a political circus. To be sure, the family derives great comfort and strength in the commiseration of so many. But it is also in times like these that they can unknowingly be used.

And it is truly a sad thing to have one so young snatched so quickly and unceremoniously away, and then to have the resulting misery coopted for uses that Kian himself would probably find so revolting had he been alive to tell the difference. But now that he cannot do so, everybody is jumping in, many sincere in their grief, but probably just as many, or even more, thinking only of their own interests. And we ourselves may not be able to tell the difference either.

But you just know, because your gut feeling tells you so. You just do not see this many politicians congregating in one place or taking up the same topic had the death of Kian not taken up so much attention. Kian is not the only person of similar background who got killed in similar circumstances. But for one reason or another, this death exploded in the media, and that excites the senses of sharks the way blood does.

Most everybody has an agenda. But not everybody has an agenda that must be pushed at whatever cost. Generally, only politicians in the whole lot do. As said earlier, there is no need to enumerate the politicians who have made a beeline to Kian's wake. Their names and faces are all over the news. But you know who they are. And you know exactly what I am talking about.

‘The truth is, our politicians have grown adept at feeling genuinely for something and then using that genuine feeling

to promote something else.’