Something is happening in Asia that people need to be aware of...
Over the course of the last week over 30 people have been killed in the Philippines. Local authorities claim that these casualties were all suspected criminals, largely drug offenders. Five were killed in Manila last Sunday during a gunfight with authorities, along with three other police involved killings in other areas of the city. With the other 22 occurring outside the capital.
These deaths occurred in the week following the newly elected President of the Philippines's, Rodrigo Duterte, inauguration. President Duterte stirred controversy during the campaign by saying that "The Mayor should have been first" in reference to a raped and murdered Australian Missionary, along with statements of his beliefs that any and all criminals should be assassinated.
Despite this President Duterte was elected in a landslide victory in May and inaugurated June 30.
These add to total to nearly 100 dead in police operations since his election in may. The sheer mass of these killings should not come to a surprise from Duterte who has been given the nickname "The Punisher" for his support of extra-judicial assassinations of criminals.
These killings, while met with outrage from civil rights activists, are apparently exactly what the Filipino citizenry wants. Duerte has a long history of supporting similar killings throughout his career. While mayor of the City of Davau he condoned and at times even inciting the actions of the Davao Death Squad.
President Rodrigo Dutere's stance on the killing of criminals, from drug users to kingpins, is not only irresponsible but repugnant. He's opened the door for anyone anywhere in the country to kill anyone else. I hate it when people say "it's the slippery slope" but I think it may apply here.
When you neighborhood has been suffering from criminal activity and the local law enforcement has been floundering to make any headway at all against it. Then THE president comes out and says, “Go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.” How much more is it gonna take to make you follow your presidents words and do what you are suddenly empowered to do to protect you community.
Does that work? Do you kill one guy and everything becomes okay? Is everyone safer because you took upon yourself to get rid a problem? Maybe no one messes with you again, not until that guy's buddies track you down. Do you, like you did him.
I mean you are a murderer now right? It was there civic duty to make sure the guy that killed there friend can never commit another crime.
Encouraging these extra-judicial executions will only lead to more death, and will not do anything to actually address the reason why so many people have turned to crime in the Philippines,
Maybe President Rodrigo Dutere honestly believes that this is the best way to address the crime problems in the Philippines, his apparent zeal on the subject would point to such. But the problem is it rarely helps. Largely due to a lack of accountability. What happens when vigilante accidentally kills a civilian when going after a criminal. He can not get fired, because he is just another murderer. He will try and disappear and just become more work for the police.
I understand that this may not seem like any big thing to many Americans. "Oh another underdeveloped Asian country has civil right's abuses. Why should I care?" You should care because this man was DEMOCRATICALLY elected as the President of the Philippines, and is acknowledged as a criminal by the US State Department.
In this time of terror threats and destabilization of entire states average people need to be aware when a man who desires such wanton and widespread death is given the highest office in a nation with all the resources and power that come along with that.
The Republic of the Philippines is a democracy of over 100 million people, a founding member of both the UN and ASEAN, and a growing economic power in the East. And now it's run by a man who wants to instigate a bloodbath.
It should not matter what you opinion on drug offenders or even you beliefs about the authority of police. Even if these deaths can be justified, it still does not change the fact that it sets precedent to to a gross abridgment of people's right to due process. Which does not, and should never, happen hand in hand with a clamp down on crime.
I think Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, said it best. “The drug menace must stop … Yet the apparent serial summary executions of alleged street drug users or petty drug lords which appear sudden, too contrived and predictable must also stop,” he said in a statement. “The two are not incompatible.”
