HOW bad is the peace and order problem? It is bad; worse than bad, it is anarchy.
In Silang, Cavite, the police are protecting the killers of an American retiree, killed by Caviteños who broke into the house of an American, roughed up his wife, stole everything that wasn’t screwed to the floor and, for good measure, shot his guest, an old American retired person from the US military.
On any street in Manila, you will be accosted by men with knives and robbed of everything on your person.
Waitresses at a coffee house were amazed I had the courage to use a cell phone. They no longer carry theirs.
In every nook and cranny in the country, young people will beg and borrow, steal and kill for a fix. Walk on the corner of Ayala Avenue and Herrera, and you will feel crunchiness under your shoes: thin plastic straws for shabu.
Overseas Filipino workers complain that sending money back home is no longer for tuition, but to pay for their children’s habit.
Retired cops playing jai alai at Casino Español say that new recruits no sooner don their uniforms than deal drugs.
And, as you know, the British “weaponized” Indian opium to create and to hold, until death did them part from the habit, tens of millions of Chinese that they had systematically addicted to opium. And any attempt by the Chinese government to stop the trade was punished by naval bombardment from British gunships.
The Japanese continued the practice in the parts of China they conquered. Which is why, if we join the Japanese Navy for naval exercises with the US in the South China Sea, I dearly hope China nukes us. The Chinese have not forgiven the addiction of China to British rule. Today most drugs come from Chinese sources.
Drugs and the crimes they spawn are a problem only Duterte can solve or seriously start to do so.
It is not a problem of logistics. It is beyond a problem of law enforcement. It is a question of character. And character cannot be hired. It can only be elected to power. Do you hate the problem enough to break the law, to stamp it out by any means, even if they are legally and morally wrong? The cure must be worse than the disease for the cure to work. Disease just makes the patient sick; this cure kills him. Do you have what it takes to be the cure that is worse than the disease and kill it? Only Duterte has said, in a powerful moment, as he turned away from the camera, “My God, how I hate drugs.” But in Sunday’s ABS-CBN debate, Duterte admitted that he might fail. He will try, however; and when he says he will try, that means thousands will die. Good. We all know it is Duterte or nobody; in the words of the great Roman, Aut Caesar Aut Nihil—either Caesar or nothing.
Drugs and the crimes they spawn have escalated into a national security problem. This is how a foreign power can control us, body and soul. Only Duterte has said without a moment’s hesitation that he will shoot his kids if he catches them with drugs. That is the best rehab program ever. Death works and it buries the problem out of sight. In Davao a billionaire planter is a known drug addict, not a dealer, just addict; he likes the stuff. Duterte must kill him as a sign of sincerity.
In the coming election, think about this. After six years of this administration, an entire country is on the verge of breakdown. Who can pull it back from the abyss? If not Duterte—for he promises to resign if he doesn’t make a deep dent in the problem within three to six months, who can do it in his place? Your choice of vice president is important. Or can any of his rivals be—not do—but be—another Duterte? Because it is a question of character inherent in being Duterte. This question was never raised in the debate. It is now raised before your political conscience.
I looked up the moral philosophy I took up at Harvard. John Rawls would argue that extrajudicial executions are not defensible philosophically, but he qualified that the demands of justice are valid only in societies that are, for the most part, just; or where the possibility of achieving just conditions is distinctly real. This is not the case in the Philippines. So, yes, extrajudicial executions are okay. Duterte, gave as a compelling example, the man who raped a baby so brutally its vagina split wide open and its stomach cavity was exposed by the strength of his thrusts and the size of his member. Duterte did not elaborate, but I assume the man swallowed a bullet.
1 comment
The thing that I most respect about you, Sir, is your searing honesty and outrage against all you know and see and perceive as wrong and all that is against the best of humanity and our potential as human beings in (a mostly) inhumane society and world.