METHOD TO MADNESS
By Tonyo Cruz
Manila Bulletin
Aug. 26, 2017
If a man – let’s call him Vitaliano – was held hostage by a drug addict armed with a grenade, that would be a crime. But if his security detail, ostensibly law enforcers, would hostage him, that would be a crime too – but worse.
Drug addicts are in a different mental state. Which is why medical practitioners say they should be handled differently and in a more effective way. Law enforcers — in a perpetual state of being alagad ng batas — are expected to be better and different.
Drug addicts-turned-criminals face criminal charges. Law enforcers-turned-criminals face not only criminal charges. They face charges for violating rules and laws that oblige them to serve and protect civilians, to save the innocent, and to capture alive the criminals so they could face a court of justice. They are given pistols, badges and a uniform for precise reasons.
Grabbing, punching, planting a gun, making Kian delos Santos run, shooting him point blank as he knelt, and planting sachets of shabu on — these are not among the reasons why we organized a national police. Only criminals would do that to the likes of Kian, a Grade 11 student and a son of an OFW.
And thus we rage over Kian’s murder and demand that this entire government do its job as set down by the law: Investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of the cold-blooded killing.
When he appeared this week at the Senate, the Secretary of Injustice came prepared and brought garbage. It is no longer important whether he invented those trashy ideas or they were gathered for him by the PCOO assistant secretary. The important thing is that they were/are wrong.
Vitaliano Aguirre was choosy: He complained that Kian’s case is overblown. He did not complain that the police pumped two or three bullets into Kian’s head as he fell and lay prostrate on the dirt.
We cannot blame Aguirre and PNP chief Bato dela Rosa for doing everything to demonize Kian and to legitimize his murder. The three bullets that were shot through Kian’s head symbolically skidded and then pierced through the pathetic lies behind President Duterte’s war on drugs.
Remember: Duterte has not stopped talking about his List of Narcopoliticians and says we have become a narco-state.
But what does he do to the narcopoliticians? Some get absolved after visiting him, the rest get a chance to prove their innocence.
The bullets that killed Kian tore holes through Duterte’s List of Narcopoliticians.
The PNP has a different list. We don’t know how they made such list which just magically appeared after June 30, 2016. Some say it included surrenderees and reformed addicts, and those misled into signing pieces of paper in Tokhang operations.
The bullets that killed Kian tore holes through the PNP’s List of Drug Personalities.
If Duterte and Bato really believe they’re correct that we have become a narco-state, surely police generals would have made that possible either thru negligence or being in cahoots with the syndicates. But no PNP revamp. The two murdered mayors could be nothing but a warning to the others in Duterte’s List who haven’t gone to worship at his feet or join his ruling coalition.
For all their declarations of a big national problem of narcopolitics, all Duterte wants are affidavits and due process for Pulong Duterte, Peter Lim, the drug lords at Bilibid and the narcopoliticians. For the poor and victims of narcopoliticians — Duterte offers only death certificates.
How and why Kian and 12,000 others have ended up dead in this so-called war against narcopolitics is for Duterte, Bato and Aguirre to answer. Indeed, if narcopolitics is the problem, why are their victims and the innocent the ones being neutralized?
Aguirre has to answer other questions. The DDS media network led by PCOO assistant secretary Mocha Uson is accusing him of monumental incompetence. They say justice is not being given to victims of rapes, massacres, murders, theft, kidnapping and other crimes perpetrated by drug-crazed criminals. The PNP chief must also explain why the police has not nabbed or filed information on the criminals.
The president’s men and minions are falling all over themselves trying to demonize Kian because his murder exposes the abuse of power started by Duterte and which is now practiced by the police. Kian’s case also show there may really be no vigilante groups: the “alagad ng batas” are the death squads.
This is not about intelligence — whether the lack of it or depending on the DDS media network for it. This is about power and its abuse. Congress has been complicit, and thereby gave up its role as a check on presidential abuse. The DOJ and Congress gave immunity and protection to drug lords that willingly played a role in causing the prosecution of a senator. Meanwhile, no case has been filed against the smuggler of the P6.4-billion shabu found by Customs.
They excuse themselves by saying it is complicated to file charges against the big-time shabu smuggler. True — because it is complicated to file charges where the president’s son could be implicated. That’s not a deficit in intelligence. That’s abuse of power.
Compared to actually fighting narcopolitics, it is easier to kill suspected addicts and pushers at any urban poor community. Also easier to make sachets of shabu and plant them as evidence — and have the entire DDS media network and its troll army attempt to justify everything.
Like Duterte, the DDS media network always pretends to be against rapists, kidnappers, murderers, thieves and other criminals. They say most of the criminals are drug users or are also part of drug syndicates. But exactly how the killings give justice to the victims, they cannot tell. They cannot even identify many of the slain people, in the first place. They are like vultures, preying on the dead.
President Duterte, who is the brains behind the war on drugs, has lost the moral basis to continue this war. It is a war against science, against the Constitution, against the record of similar failed wars elsewhere, and against the innocent and the poor. It is a war that favors his son and the powerful. It is a war without end — not only because he failed to end it as he promised. It is a war without end because it rests on abuse of power, wrong assumptions, imagined importance, short-circuited processes, and inflated egos.
All of the talk from Duterte, Bato, dela Rosa and Uson cannot change the simple facts about Kian. He didn’t rape anybody. He didn’t massacre a family in Bulacan. He wasn’t an addict. He was closing his family’s store and was about to rest for a test the next day. In my book, that’s a model son who the state must serve and protect.
Kian’s last words were not for the police or the authorities. “Tama na po” was for the people of the Philippines. If the government thinks and insists a Grade 11 student is a legitimate target for its drug war, we are obligated and justified to stand up and call for an end to the madness.
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Mga Kababayan, huwag na tayong mananatiling Voiceless Against Cops' Crimes (VACC). Sa mga lehitimong operasyon ng ating mga kapulisan na saan naaayon sa tamang pamamaraan at hindi lumalabag sa rule of law at due process, buong-buo tayong sumasang-ayon. Subalit sa mga pamalakad nila na taliwas sa batas, huwag tayong matakot na magsalita laban nito. Ipahag natin ang ating mga saluobin na tumututol sa mga krimen na nagawa, ginawa, at gagawin pa ng ating mga kapulisan dahil sa kanilang mapagmamalabis at mapangaabusong paggamit ng kanilang kapangyarihan nitong isinasagawa at tinatawag nilang gyera kontra druga.
Huwag nating hayaan na ang ating mga kapulisan, na siyang inaasahan natin na mga tagapagtanggol at tagapagbigay proteksyon sa atin, ay baka magka-develop ng "culture of impunity" at baka ang kulturang ito ay mananatili na sa kanilang kaisipan at baka ito ay magiging mindset na nila at baka sila ay mag-evolve at magigi ng isang "government killing machine" kahit hindi na si Digong ang presidente. At baka sa tuwing may anti-drug operation sila na gagawin, kahit hindi na si Digong ang presidente, kung ano na ang kanilang nakasanayang gawa sa panahon ni Digong, yun na rin ang kanilang patuloy na gagawin.
Kaya, sa ibang mga kababayan natin, kung maari, tigilan na ang pagiging Volunteers Against Chief's Critics (VACC). Sa halip, magkaisa tayo sa pagiging tunay na Vanguards Against Cruelty on Civilians (VACC) sa pamamagitan ng ating pagiging Vociferous Advocates against Crime and Corruption (VACC).
