There is a feeling of dread in the morning whenever I go online to read the news. It comes from having to read sad or terrifying news about conflicts and deaths in various corners of the world. The feeling magnifies especially when it involves your home. Of late, there have been a lot of killings and deaths in the Philippines. These deaths are linked to the war on drugs that the newly-elected president is intensely campaigning for. He isn't shy about condoning the deaths of supposed drug lords, pushers and users alike. The key term here is supposed.
This kind of environment has effectively created impunity towards indiscriminate killing so long as the targets are guilty of drug-related crimes. Question is, how was this guilt established? In the Philippines, it is laid out by a list that supposedly has all the names of the drug lords that have been running this illegal business and all their associates. Their involvement have been determined and sealed by this four letter word - list. Who made the list? No one knows. How did it come about? One can only deduce but that is not even the point. The point is, how does supposed turn into proven guilt? What was the process? Who enacts the law? That's the thing, the law has been loosely exacted by the citizens themselves who felt empowered by the president's incessant pronouncements about the war on drugs. They feel justified to kill without due process because the general theme now is to get rid of everyone involved in drugs. There is a general feeling of compulsion to ride the band wagon that is the war on drugs. Somehow it has turned into the latest "craze" that has taken over the news and the consciousness of the Filipino people.
Law is reason free from passion, says Aristotle. Each person develops likes and dislikes that are not completely identical with other people. Hence, in every society, there is a need to find a common ground that will bind its people into an agreement that accommodates the different values that can be found in their society. As such, the rule of law is an integral component of order in any society, that which prevents chaos and provides a basis for unification. Since we have different ways of thinking, the law is meant to unify our thoughts into a single value system that is governed by rules and regulations. All these are meant to provide a structure by which our conduct is to be carried out. When there is a breach in this agreement, the law is meant to act as the system by which this breach is evaluated in order to define the corrective action needed to address the issue. The same law lays out the standards by which the gravity of an offense is determined which in turn decides the specific form of corrective action that will be implemented that matches the weight of the offense. This is exactly the reason why a due process is required in any proceeding that is meant to determine if a breach has happened and if it has, what corrective action should be carried out. The point of the due process is to determine guilt. However, presuming guilt instead of innocence changes the entire nature of the rule of law. It does away with the due process because hey, your name is on the list so that makes you guilty. Since you are on the list, there is no need to determine the gravity of the offense, you simply need to be eliminated. Death is now the logical conclusion of your trial. But wait, there is no trial so that makes death the inevitable conclusion of your enterprise.
This is not to say that it is ok to deal drugs or use it. Due process is used to verify the veracity of an accusation because after all, no one is infallible. If we go by truth as a list that someone came up with, it wouldn't be long before everyone creates a list of their own, containing names of people that they would like to eliminate for whatever reason, as long as they are "bad" people. Who determines guilt? Not a court of law nor the judgment of peers, it will be determined by those who have taken it upon themselves to enact the law. Who's there to regulate them? No one, because these people work in the shadows, the same dark spots where the supposed bad people operate. Ask yourself, how are they any different from the people they have eliminated? Will you turn to the people to whom you have entrusted your safety to when they wear the same colors as those who work in the shadows?
Who's next? Could be anyone now. Whether you're on the list or not doesn't really matter anymore. You have to ask yourself, with this kind of mentality, which group of people will be targeted next? If everyone involved in drug-related crimes have been eliminated, whom shall these "justice seekers" turn to next? This may seem far fetched but what the heck, it's the current reality. We all have good and bad elements in our character. If we are to eliminate everyone who has done wrong, none of us will be left because in one way or another, we all have done bad things. Without due process, how do we qualify our society as orderly? Or are we just sick of the bad things that we keep on dealing with that it makes us willing to plunge ourselves into chaos because the current system does not seem to be working? In both cases, bad things happen but order in the midst of chaos is certainly better than chaos within chaos. I'd much rather have one good hair day out of a hundred bad ones than have frizzy hair everyday of my life.
It should cause alarm for anyone to observe how loosely justice is projected or how lightly life is valued. Some intentions are good at the outset but drastically turn evil when all pretensions have been stripped away. It is incumbent upon all of us to be vanguards of every person's inviolable dignity and the irrefutable sanctity of human life. When we cannot agree on this, then there isn't much hope left for this world. When it plunges into darkness, there will be no return.
xoxo
QB
This kind of environment has effectively created impunity towards indiscriminate killing so long as the targets are guilty of drug-related crimes. Question is, how was this guilt established? In the Philippines, it is laid out by a list that supposedly has all the names of the drug lords that have been running this illegal business and all their associates. Their involvement have been determined and sealed by this four letter word - list. Who made the list? No one knows. How did it come about? One can only deduce but that is not even the point. The point is, how does supposed turn into proven guilt? What was the process? Who enacts the law? That's the thing, the law has been loosely exacted by the citizens themselves who felt empowered by the president's incessant pronouncements about the war on drugs. They feel justified to kill without due process because the general theme now is to get rid of everyone involved in drugs. There is a general feeling of compulsion to ride the band wagon that is the war on drugs. Somehow it has turned into the latest "craze" that has taken over the news and the consciousness of the Filipino people.
Law is reason free from passion, says Aristotle. Each person develops likes and dislikes that are not completely identical with other people. Hence, in every society, there is a need to find a common ground that will bind its people into an agreement that accommodates the different values that can be found in their society. As such, the rule of law is an integral component of order in any society, that which prevents chaos and provides a basis for unification. Since we have different ways of thinking, the law is meant to unify our thoughts into a single value system that is governed by rules and regulations. All these are meant to provide a structure by which our conduct is to be carried out. When there is a breach in this agreement, the law is meant to act as the system by which this breach is evaluated in order to define the corrective action needed to address the issue. The same law lays out the standards by which the gravity of an offense is determined which in turn decides the specific form of corrective action that will be implemented that matches the weight of the offense. This is exactly the reason why a due process is required in any proceeding that is meant to determine if a breach has happened and if it has, what corrective action should be carried out. The point of the due process is to determine guilt. However, presuming guilt instead of innocence changes the entire nature of the rule of law. It does away with the due process because hey, your name is on the list so that makes you guilty. Since you are on the list, there is no need to determine the gravity of the offense, you simply need to be eliminated. Death is now the logical conclusion of your trial. But wait, there is no trial so that makes death the inevitable conclusion of your enterprise.
This is not to say that it is ok to deal drugs or use it. Due process is used to verify the veracity of an accusation because after all, no one is infallible. If we go by truth as a list that someone came up with, it wouldn't be long before everyone creates a list of their own, containing names of people that they would like to eliminate for whatever reason, as long as they are "bad" people. Who determines guilt? Not a court of law nor the judgment of peers, it will be determined by those who have taken it upon themselves to enact the law. Who's there to regulate them? No one, because these people work in the shadows, the same dark spots where the supposed bad people operate. Ask yourself, how are they any different from the people they have eliminated? Will you turn to the people to whom you have entrusted your safety to when they wear the same colors as those who work in the shadows?
Who's next? Could be anyone now. Whether you're on the list or not doesn't really matter anymore. You have to ask yourself, with this kind of mentality, which group of people will be targeted next? If everyone involved in drug-related crimes have been eliminated, whom shall these "justice seekers" turn to next? This may seem far fetched but what the heck, it's the current reality. We all have good and bad elements in our character. If we are to eliminate everyone who has done wrong, none of us will be left because in one way or another, we all have done bad things. Without due process, how do we qualify our society as orderly? Or are we just sick of the bad things that we keep on dealing with that it makes us willing to plunge ourselves into chaos because the current system does not seem to be working? In both cases, bad things happen but order in the midst of chaos is certainly better than chaos within chaos. I'd much rather have one good hair day out of a hundred bad ones than have frizzy hair everyday of my life.
It should cause alarm for anyone to observe how loosely justice is projected or how lightly life is valued. Some intentions are good at the outset but drastically turn evil when all pretensions have been stripped away. It is incumbent upon all of us to be vanguards of every person's inviolable dignity and the irrefutable sanctity of human life. When we cannot agree on this, then there isn't much hope left for this world. When it plunges into darkness, there will be no return.
xoxo
QB
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