![]() He is only responding effectively to the fear he has long smelled in many Filipinos, he tells them he will protect them and save them – and most believe him. He is but one man, already 72 years old and, by his own admission, even sickly. It is not enough to bash President Duterte. Gosh, our children even idolize super heroes who do not work within the ambit of laws, who simply go by their judgment of right or wrong. The fear of drugs, the criminals who sell them, the corrupt politicians and policemen who protect them, and the drug addicts who become crazed and violent, this fear can be greater than people who take the law into their own hands. Choosing between two evils is choosing between two fears. Rather than condemning those who accept or tolerate the extra-judicial killings, those who understand the eventual price society has to pay for retaining the eye for an eye principle may as well focus their energies to actively raising the bar of justice.īecause fear is a powerful driver, and the greater fear is the more powerful driver. The innocent are forced to choose between two evils, and the evil that hurts less of them will be tolerated and, sometimes, celebrated. They say there are about 7,000 of these unexplained killings, but a flawed justice system the whole population. Extra-judicial and vigilante killings are scary but less scary that a country of laws where justice is skewed to favor the rich, powerful and connected. Losing parties in a litigation often claim the same thing – they were cheated, the judge was bought, the justice system favored someone, especially the rich and connected. It is like elections where no one loses, only cheated. It is no secret that Filipinos do not feel a strong sense of justice in the land. It simply shows that the country of laws has not been felt to be such, not by the majority of the people. It should not shock those who are vehemently against extrajudicial killings that the President is still rewarded with a high trust and approval rating. That is eye for an eye, a natural reaction. I would venture to say that these families could have wished that those responsible for corrupting their family members to the drug addiction would disappear or die with such horror as they are inflicting on drug addicts and their families. If the President is more or less accurate in his pronounced estimates that there may be four million drug users in the country, that means 20% of families are directly affected. There are by now a few million families that have been directly affected with a drug user member, and more millions who are indirectly affected because they are friends or relatives of drug addicts. And, as mentioned earlier, almost half of the world does not offer the other cheek but extract the equivalent of a crime. That exhortation has slowly seeped in after two thousand years, in law and in practice, but not without difficulty. I accept that for Christians, Jesus did promote a radical contrast when He said forgive and love one’s enemies, to offer the other cheek when slapped. Or else, it would not have been a worldwide practice, or be mentioned in the Bible as an application of justice. I am not writing about the death penalty, I am writing about the continuing practice of eye for an eye. And some, like the Philippines, want to re-impose it. ![]() There are now about 55% of the countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty, the equivalent of an eye for an eye in heinous crimes. It was natural for that time, and it covered millennia and remains natural for today’s time though serious efforts are in place to reverse it. ![]() The Biblical saying (yes, it was a Biblical saying) of an eye for an eye was natural. ![]()
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