THE country’s most influential Catholic leaders have again come forward to denounce the administration’s bloody approach to solving the drug problem, appalled at the path this predominantly Catholic country has taken.
In separate statements released over the weekend, Manila Archibishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle and Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas urged the public to reexamine their moralities amid President Duterte’s heightened “war on drugs” that left 90 people dead in just a week.
In his statement, Tagle admitted the country has a problem with illegal drugs, but that facing and acting upon such a problem should have united the Filipino people, instead of dividing it.
“Given the complexity of the issues, no single individual, group or institution could claim to have the only right response. We need one another. We cannot disregard each other,” he said.
Tagle proposed a multisectoral dialogue to “chart a common path” in solving the drug menace in a peaceful manner. He said the Archdiocese of Manila would be willing to host such a dialogue among families, national government agencies, local government units, people’s organizations, the police and military and recovering drug addicts, among other stakeholders.
“The illegal-drugproblem should not be reduced to a political or criminal issue. It is a humanitarian concern that affects all of us,” he said.
Tagle urged the public to look beyond statistics and see the “human stories” behind the bloody war, citing it is still the best way to understand the effect of such a deadly strategy to end drugs.
“Families with members who have been destroyed by illegal drugs must tell their stories. Families with members who have been killed in the drug-war, especially the innocent ones, must be allowed to tell their stories. Drug addicts who have recovered must tell their stories of hope. Let their stories be told; let their human faces be revealed,” he said.
Government data showed the war on drugs have so far claimed the lives of 3,000 innocent people since it started last year. People’s organizations said the actual figure is much higher and have actually breached the 10,000 mark in the past couple of months.
The past week has been reported as the bloodiest, with nightly operations claiming no less than 20 lives in various cities. It started in Bulacan, where 32 individuals were killed in an overnight sweep at the start of the week. Manila, Caloocan, Valenzuela, and other cities followed suit.
It was also the week that claimed the life of Grade 11 student Kian delos Santos, whose parents and neighbors said he had no connection whatsoever to narcotics. His extrajudicial killing in Caloocan has birthed a public outcry.
Incoming CBCP Vice President Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of the Caloocan diocese earlier likened the ongoing drug war with witch hunts that happened during the Marcos dictatorship. He said back then, “communist” was the “convenient label and justification” for abductions and killings.
“Now, it’s ‘drug suspects’. I don’t know of any law in any civilized society that says a person deserves to die because he or she is a “drug suspect”, David said in a CBCP news report. Villegas is questioning what seems to be “the new normal”—suspected criminals killed every night, minors and children getting caught up and dismissed as “collateral damage”. and the endless narrative of claimed crossfire when eyewitnesses swore there was no encounter, no shootout—only murder.
“The nation is in chaos! The official who killed gets recognition. The dead gets blamed. The corpses can no longer explain and defend themselves against those who claim that ‘They fought back.’ They can no longer say, “I beg your mercy; I am not fighting back!” Who is there to fight for them?” Villegas said.
Without mentioning any names, Villegas criticized Duterte’s recent pronouncement that if “we could kill 32 more every day, we could reduce the ails of this country”.
“It was said, if we could just kill 32 every day, our lives would be better…and our countrymen nodded their heads in agreement. A countryman claps his hands and gleefully shouts—“That’s right!”—while counting dead bodies in the dark, while traversing through wakes left and right,” he said.
The CBCP president also lamented how “only a handful of Filipinos bestow mercy on those who are killed”, and how there seems to be selective justice in dealing with those who have suspected involvement in narcotics.
“Don’t we know how to cry out anymore? Why are we no longer troubled by the sound of gunshots and the sight of blood spilling on the sidewalks? Why is no one enraged over the drugs smuggled from China? Why is it the poor gets shot, while the rich and the powerful have the privilege of investigations and affidavits?”
Villegas announced that from August 22, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, up until November 27, the Feast of Our Lady of Miraculous Medal, all churches in Lingayen-Dagupan would continuously ring their bells from 8 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. He said it shall serve as a prayer offering for those whose lives were claimed by the drug war.
The public, for its part, has the chance to prove Villegas wrong when he claimed that nobody is enraged over the spate of killings that has plagued the nation. A demonstration called “Himagsikan #ParaKayKian” will be held at 6 p.m. on August 29 at the People Power Monument in Edsa.
One of the initiators, Sylvia E. Claudio, has urged participants not to bring organizational posters, since the indignation rally is supposed to “be about our common humanity”.
“Come if you want to erase your pain. Bring your feelings. Express your sentiments. It’s not about politics anymore. This is about humanity. Every Filipino life matters,” Claudio said.