Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jul 2016
Source: Philippine Star (Philippines)
Column: Sketches
Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2016
Contact:  http://www.philstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622
Author: Ana Marie Pamintuan

UNLEASHED

Corazon Aquino unleashed the freedom fighter in the Pinoy. Fidel 
Ramos unleashed the team spirit.

Rodrigo Duterte is unleashing... our inner homicidal maniac?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I can't help wondering if 
this "killing time" under Dirty Rody emboldened Army reservist Von 
Tanto to shoot that biker with whom he had a vehicular altercation 
Monday night.

CCTV footage showed Tanto not just shooting to kill rather than 
wound, but finishing off Mark Vincent Geralde as the biker lay dying 
on the pavement. A stray bullet apparently hit and critically wounded 
a teenage girl standing in front of her house nearby.

Lethal road rage run-ins are not unusual in this country. But in this 
age of CCTV and high-resolution smartphone cameras, one has to be 
confident of getting away with murder to do what Tanto is accused of 
doing in Manila's Quiapo district, which is crowded and busy even at night.

Even if the CCTV footage showed Tanto getting whupped and held in a 
headlock by Geralde, someone who fears he might get caught and suffer 
"retribution" would think twice before aiming a loaded gun at a foe's 
head and then pulling the trigger.

Since Tanto's car still has no license plates (probably stuck, like a 
lot of other plates, at the Land Transportation Office), did he think 
witnesses would fail to ID his car, and Geralde's death would be 
written off as just another vigilante killing?

The suspect handles a gun like a shooting aficionado, which has 
raised the question: is he one of the vigilantes responsible for 
several of the unexplained killings in the past weeks in Manila?

Filipinos desperate for swift justice and frustrated over the 
weakness of the criminal justice system are looking the other way if 
not cheering outright the "neutralization" of drug suspects  or at 
least people described by police as drug suspects.

People don't even wonder why drug suspects in this killing season 
have their hands cuffed in front of them rather than behind their 
back, which is what sensible cops do if they want to avoid having 
suspects grab police guns and resisting arrest.

In the past weeks in our newsroom, we have been keeping track of the 
daily body count in this war on drugs and crime. The count includes 
both the drug suspects killed in supposed police encounters or while 
trying to escape as well as victims of summary executions whose 
bodies bear placards declaring they are drug pushers.

Last Wednesday the death toll was 17 in Luzon alone, plus two in 
Negros. Yesterday it was 14 in Luzon. In previous days the body count 
ranged from 10 to 12 outside Metro Manila. Since May 10 when it 
became clear that Rodrigo Duterte had won the presidency, the drug 
war must have claimed nearly 300 casualties.

If 300 Filipinos were killed in a single incident - whether a natural 
calamity or a ship sinking or armed conflict - we would declare a 
period of national mourning. If it resulted from an armed encounter, 
it would be called a massacre and there would be strong calls for justice.

Instead here we are, getting inured to 10, 12 people being shot dead 
in one day, seeing the numbers merely as statistics rather than a human toll.

We are jolted by the violence only when there's video footage or 
photograph of the killing  as in the case of Tanto and Geralde. Or 
that woman who wept as she hugged her slain partner. The man, 
emaciated by drugs and poverty, was a drug user but not a pusher, the 
woman wailed. How did bystanders react to the killing? Photos showed 
a large crowd surrounding the woman and the victim, their phone 
cameras clicking away.

A foreign diplomat expressed to me his appalled disbelief at such a 
brazen invasion of privacy in a moment of deep personal grief. Such 
incidents, unfortunately, are rapidly becoming the new normal in our 
country under Dirty Rody.

With President Duterte in office for less than a month, I guess the 
international community thinks it's too early for criticism or even 
an expression of concern.

Which begs the question: when is a good time to voice concern? I know 
there are diplomats who are pondering precisely this issue. 
Especially because if we Filipinos ourselves aren't protesting, why 
should they?

There have been many moments in world history when the worst 
atrocities were committed because ordinary people looked the other 
way and did nothing to stop them. German-born Jewish political 
theorist Hannah Arendt, writing about the trial in Jerusalem of Nazi 
commander Adolf Eichmann for the Holocaust, famously coined the 
phrase "the banality of evil"  the perpetration of ghastly crimes by 
normal, ordinary people who believe they are just following orders 
and doing a job, with no thought about the consequences.

The United Nations supports the idea that the international community 
has "a responsibility to protect" people from crimes committed by the 
state. Bernard Kouchner, cofounder of Medecins Sans Frontieres or 
Doctors Without Borders who served as French foreign minister, 
espoused the idea of "the right to interfere" when governments behave 
as if they can do anything with their citizens.

Foreign observers have also told me that if a country commits to the 
international community that it is abolishing the death penalty - 
which is what Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did in behalf of the 
Philippines during her presidency - that country is expected to be 
bound by the commitment and can no longer get out.

A common Pinoy reaction to that is we don't even need to revive the 
death penalty anyway when people are getting killed literally by the 
dozen all over the country. But I guess President Rody believes not 
all troublemakers can be shot dead outright. Others, such as corrupt 
public officials, may have to be hanged in public (twice, to make 
sure they're dead) to make sure everyone understands that in this 
country, if you break the law, there will be hell to pay. There will 
be retribution, meaning you may end up not just dead but double dead.

I know sane, normal, ordinary Filipinos who are actually looking 
forward to the double hanging. Seriously.

A leader should unleash the best in every Filipino. Instead what 
we're seeing is the worst in us unleashed. The failure of the 
criminal justice system has made the killings enjoy mass support. But 
it's a humanitarian abyss from which we may never be able to crawl back up.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom