It is not the impunity to kill criminals that should bother us, but the impunity of those criminals to commit crime. The State can only violate the right of the suspect to due process of law, and the police that violate that right can be charged of the crime consequent to that violation. If there is a visible color of political vendetta carried out by the arresting officers, both the police and the state can be held liable for human rights violation. Impunity therefore has reference to criminals who brazenly violate the law to commit crimes, and they are no longer deterred by the punishment imposed by law. There is a culture of violence because crimes have somewhat become a day-to-day occurrence.
Notably, people commit crimes for various reasons. One, because of corruption. When corruption becomes pervasive, society is eventually affected, and this has a debilitating effect on the ability of our law enforcement authorities to maintain the peace and order in society. Second, because of acute economic inequality. If the wedge of disparity becomes wide, our law enforcement officers are demoralized that no sooner they too become part of the problem. Third, because of our Christian orientation catalyzed in our decision to abolish death penalty.
Because of our ambivalent approaches to resolving criminality, President Duterte’s war on drugs has become a bloody fracas. Since all involved from the importation, manufacture, sale and distribution of drugs are confronted with the possibility of being killed, the killing itself has become an incentive that nobody now knows whom to blame. Some drug lords and their protectors kill those who might squeal or purposely liquidate them and point the blame on the policemen. On the part of some law enforcers, the extrajudicial killing of suspects has become an incentive because that will promote them. Worst, the offer of reward has instantly turned many of them to become bounty hunters driven not for patriotic duty but for monetary consideration.
The Church for its part also failed to anticipate that the abolition of death penalty will blow out of proportion the campaign against criminality. As President Duterte bluntly put it, drugs have all the ingredients to destroy society and our people. The absence of death penalty has made the country the hub of international drug syndicates. We cannot keep on blaming other countries for our failure to cope up with the menace. As the drug menace spreads, many of our politicians are tempted to poke their fingers into this illegal but lucrative business just to keep up with the costly democratic practice, viz. to keep themselves in power.
Indeed, narco politics has overwhelmed us because of the huge profit generated from the sale and distribution of drugs. It has become a big enterprise for the drug lords and some politicians, and a cottage industry for the small fry like Kian Loyd de los Santos.
To begin with, Kian Loyd de los Santos was killed in the process of police operations. The teenage boy was not wholly innocent as portrayed by the opposition. He was a confirmed drug courier. Most worrisome, the opposition are trying to dramatize the issue beyond proportion even projecting him as wholly innocent and worthy of being made a martyr like Ninoy to generate public indignation against the government. At this point, we must not forget that President Duterte has incurred the ire of the US because of his anti-American rhetoric and for bridging closer our relations with China.
The drifting of the Philippines towards China is one issue why the US has become active and vocal once again on the issue of human rights hoping to use the same strategy to agitate the local opposition against the government. The convergence of issues like the killing of Kian came at a time after that hypocrite Andres Bautista was exposed as a corrupt persona of gargantuan proportion and as their lackey in rigging our election. Kian’s death seems like manna that fell from heaven.
It could be clearly deciphered that both the opposition and their principal broker have been trying to sort out one effective issue that could bring the Duterte administration to its knees. The hype about Kian’s killing is all intended to generate frenzy and hatred against the government, and they are proving to be good political ammunition for the yellow Liberal Party, militant Left, the oligarchy, so-called human rights crusaders and even to the opportunistic Church. The US ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, is seeking “full accountability” that if found guilty, the US now has their reason to move for the ouster of Duterte. In effect, the US now stands as the conductor of the band to bring down the Duterte administration. Exploiting the death of Kian is a wise and calibrated move to sway public opinion to their favor. Isolating Digong, the US hopes to create an atmosphere that could possibly scuttle the $36 billion economic development package offered by China.
Of course, nobody in his right mind would say that the arresting officers could not be held liable for Kian’s death. But an objective judgment of what happened would lead us to see that the arresting officers could only be held liable for homicide. The case cannot be elevated to one of murder, much that it was not a premeditated plan to liquidate a teenage boy. It was an ordinary police operations that turned bloody. Neither can the opposition elevate the case as another human rights violation because anybody who indulges in any criminal activity opens himself to possible retribution.
Nobody really knows what could have happened if Kian meekly surrendered just as nobody knows if the arresting officers would kill an unarmed youthful offender if he surrendered peacefully. In other words, only an objective investigation of what happened could help guide the President. For now, it will be difficult for President Duterte to rashly order the prosecution of the arresting policemen. It is not so much that the President is against their being prosecuted but of the demoralizing effect to our law enforcement officers. To judge them for a crime they did not intend to commit would equally result in an injustice for those who have sworn to uphold the law. The President has proven himself to be firm, and it is his firmness that will serve as his defining moment as a leader of our country.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
