AHEAD OF tomorrow’s Senate inquiry on the rising tide of extrajudicial killings amid the war on drugs, different sectors are already demanding an end to the violence and bloodshed.
As of August 18, the Philippine Daily Inquirer has recorded 684 deaths related to the drug war since noon of June 30, the start of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term. The president has promised to pursue a “relentless” and “bloody” drive to rid the country of drugs and criminality.
At the sidelines of a talk with some POS100 students at SOM 203 last Thursday, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV called the killings “deplorable” and a cause for concern.
“We have to make a stand that while of us agree that the drug menace has to be stopped, …there are a million ways of doing it without having to kill your own people,” he said.
Trillanes said that he hopes that the Senate hearings “would be able to shed light on what’s really happening on the ground.”
“We can expect several witnesses to give their testimonies that some of the killings are actually perpetuated by corrupt policemen who are involved in drugs themselves and they’re trying to clean up the connections to the drug problem,” he said.
The international community, including the United Nations and the United States Department of State, have also expressed its concern over the drug war’s rising death toll.
UP law students: ‘#BatasHindiDahas’
Several youth groups and academic institutions have also denounced the killings. Last Thursday, the University of the Philippines Law Student Government (UP LSG) led the “Tindig Para sa Batas, Laban sa Dahas” movement wherein representatives from several UP student councils and political parties as well as faculty members marched from Malcolm Hall to Quezon Hall in UP Diliman.
UP LSG public relations officer Bounteous Servito said that the “alarming number” of deaths everyday led them to organize the demonstration. “Students, most especially of law, should be at the forefront of fighting for our constitutional rights,” he said.
“Extra-judicial killings have no place in our democratic nation…Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty by our judicial courts. No one should take the law in their own hands and no one should ignore the legal process,” Servito added.
Beyond the demonstration, the UP LSG will also continue to call for investigations on the deaths and to inform the public about their rights and legal remedies in relation to extrajudicial killings.
Ateneo community speaks up
Last month, some members of the Ateneo community have already voiced out their stand on the issue.
In a memo released last July 29, University President Jose Ramon T. Villarin, SJ addressed the growing violence in the country following the death of Ateneo High School teacher Emmanuel Jose Magno Pavia and De La Salle Philippines president Jose Mari Jimenez, FSC’s statement on extrajudicial killings.
Villarin exhorted the Atenean community to “[p]romote reverence for life, respect for human rights, and restorative justice.”
He also said that social change and personal transformation “cannot be truly achieved with fear as primary motivation or retribution as auxiliary deterrent.”
“If real change is to happen, it can only come when we hold before us the value and sanctity of every person’s life,” Villarin said.
Meanwhile, in a statement published July 17, student political party USAD-Ateneo (formerly the Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement or CRUSADA) called for a transformation of the country’s oppressive systems that have given rise to problems such as drugs, criminality, and poverty.
“Ngayon higit kailanman kailangang kilalanin at baguhin ang mga pormal at impormal na institusyong mapang-api, at patatagin ang mga institusyong kinikilala, ginagalang, at nagpapalalim sa mga karapatang pantao tungo sa tunay, makabuluhan at makataong pagbabago. (Now more than ever, there is a need to recognize and change the formal and informal institutions that oppress, and strengthen the institutions that respect and develop human rights towards a true, meaningful, and humane change.),” the statement read.
The party also stressed that drug addiction is a health issue and that the use of force to address it will only contribute to the “cycle of violence in our society.”
“Kinakailangan nating tulungan ang isa’t isang bumuo ng isang lipunan kung saan nakatuon ang ating pansin sa rehabilitasyon at pagpapagaling kaysa sa isang lipunang mapaghiganti at mapanghatol. (We need to help each other in forming a society that is oriented towards rehabilitation and healing instead of a society that is vengeful and judgmental.),” the party said.
