The numbers on the news
Who were these bodies before they became mere statistics? Was this a boy who grew up with other children as mentors? Was this a troubled father with nowhere left to turn? Was this a future business owner, mistaken for someone else in the dark?
I used to teach at an after school program while I was in high school. One of my students was named Bonjovi. His dad’s name was Bon, and his mom’s name was Jovi. He was so surprised when I guessed that in front of the class. “Pa’no mo alam, Miss?” (How did you know that?) It was the face of a child who still believed teachers knew everything.
I left the class once, and one of the other students told me that Bonjovi had put my Jackson 5 CDs under his shirt. He was eight years old and so tiny. The CD cases stuck out like a pizza box on his chest. He had a guilty smile and wide eyes. It was the face of a child who knew he was wrong.
I stuck my hand out, and he gave it to me in shame. We sat down, the students who came to tell on him said, “Snatcher yan Miss!... pero di na masyado ngayon…
ngayon lang yan” (He’s a thief, Miss… but not as much recently… that’s just now.) I asked him what made him want to take people’s things and how it started. He told me about the older boys that teach kids like him to do it. Getting the attention from the older boys made it fun. It was familiar to me then, what the cool kids define as cool, what it means to be so willing to please. I could empathize.
I told him not to do it again. He didn’t. There were no threats. No, “If you do this again I’ll…” just an acknowledgement, that I could see myself doing that, but also no, that doesn’t make it right.
I see these images circulating: bound hands, blindfolds, cardboard labeling them like pre-school IDs, young bodies with their knees to their chests like fetuses. Some are dumped in the street with signs attached: “Huwag ako tularan. Snatcher ako.” (“Don’t follow me. I’m a snatcher.”)
I look at the image and wonder: how old are these bodies? What are the names of their parents?
I heard on the radio, “Mga alleged… snatchers…120 na ang namatay sa mga engkwentro…” (Accused petty thieves, 120 have been killed in encounters.) Numbers make things feel concrete. But here, the numbers helped me forget that those bodies were real people before they were corpses.
One hundred twenty killed divided by 60 days: that equals two executions a day since the votes were counted. I wondered, is two a day a large number in relation to the population? What was the count before the elections? Whose political maneuvering is this publicity?
There is no outrage. The news is reported like a new normal. I hear the count now about as often as I hear the count down to Christmas on the –ber months.
Twenty years ago, a friend who had just entered high school at the time, was walking home on his own. A policeman grabbed his hand and accused him of being a snatcher. A young boy had just run away with someone else’s cell phone, those once-valuable clunky Nokias. After a threatening shake and search and some convincing, the officer let him go. He fit the policeman’s mental profile for a snatcher: a brown skinned skinny boy. He had no adult to protect him, so he was easy to accuse. He also blames it on his shorts, because the public snap judgment is, his shorts made him look poor, and only poor people snatch cell phones.
My friend has been a merit scholar since then and now he has his master’s degree. He runs a business and employs people. He still loves wearing shorts. I aspire to be as hardworking as he is, and I am grateful he is alive. I realize now, he was lucky to have been born at a much earlier time.
I look at the pictures and I wonder: what futures did these bodies have? What were they wearing the day they were executed?
Another friend, from Davao, was out one night for drinks. A man was hunched over, seemingly asleep. The party chose to ignore him. “Oh Andrew is always like that…” “Oh Andrew is going through a hard time…” “Oh Andrew is asleep, just let him be…” He fell to the floor dead, a drug overdose. I remember her on the phone with me holding back the tears. A man was dead in front of them, and nobody cared. Nobody called the hospital. Nobody called his family. The crowd stepped back paralyzed by the shock. They did nothing.
I look at the pictures and I wonder: what hard times were they going through? How many excuses were they given? What stories do we tell ourselves as we step back, paralyzed?
Another Davaoeña talks about her reformed taxi driver who hadn’t touched drugs for two months because Duterte became president. She counts the victories. She dreams that the next generation will be walking down the streets safely, like she did. I share her dreams.
She believes, no doubt, that this is the work of the kingpins killing off the smaller fry like sacrificial lambs. This is a statement meant to comfort us. Have we decided that their lives are less valuable than our own?
Two thirds of the encounters involve police. Have we decided that the uniforms have no loyalties? And despite that, the violence will keep itself outside our bubbles?
I wonder, who were these bodies before they became numbers on the news? Was this a boy who grew up with children as mentors? Was this a troubled father with nowhere left to turn? Was this a future business owner, mistaken for someone else in the dark?
We don’t have stories for the lives we are losing. To us, they are just lost,120 bodies in the past 60 days, and counting. All the possible futures, all the moments missed and interventions failed, have ended in this, the necessary casualties of a war on crime.