A time to kill, a time to heal

We often remember the greatest novel and most successful movie created by the masterful genius of that highly successful American lawyer and award-winning legal novelist, John Grisham. That novel and film entitled "A Time to Kill" told of the deepest anguish and pains, the anger and the spite of a Negro father, whose teenage daughter was gang raped by a group of white men. What exacerbated the gravity of the crime was that the rape was not so much motivated by physical lust but by racial prejudice. The rapists somehow was using the rape as a means to scare the black people and to inflict in them fear of their white masters.

The story took place during the height of the apartheid in the US, the heat of hatred dictated by colors and race. It was the days of the Klu Klux Klan, where white vigilantes wore masks at night and executed black people for no other reason but the color of their skin. This was the compelling motive behind Dr. Martin Luther King's crusade that inspired him to deliver that masterful speech "I have a dream." It was a time of hatred and revenge, of killings in return to killings. And so, the father, knowing full well that he could not obtain equal justice in a white-dominated government system, decided to kill the white criminals.

In Charles Bronson's movie, "Death Wish," the role he played was that of a retired good cop who felt that the current ranks of police officers and men were either incompetent, unwilling, or were in the side of the criminal elements. Thus, he took the law into his hands and made himself the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge, and the executioner all rolled into one. A series of summary killings were done but the end, the movie still demonstrated that there is no other way but to uphold the rule of law. That was the same ending of the summary justice being administered by Don Vito Corleone  in "The Godfather."

What is happening in our country today reflects a phenomenon when the fight against drugs has gone out the hands of government and many citizens have reached a point of exasperation. The past administrations have all neglected the drug problem and unwittingly, by sheer ineptitude or plain incompetence, had allowed this social malady to inflict grave and irreparable damage on the lives of Filipinos that had ruined lives and families and destroyed the fabric of Philippine society.

Thus, the vigilantes are helping government do the job. The problem is far-reaching and all-encompassing and the need to address it is too urgent and vital as to be left to the hands of government alone. The human rights activists have been harping on the sacredness of life. I am now asking them: How about the life of the victims?

We are not endorsing vigilantism as a policy of the state and the people. But it is neither for us to condemn the vigilantes because we do not know precisely what impel them to move in so risky a way. We truly believe that the noble end does not at all justify the unlawful means. But we cannot judge people who kill because their loved ones were killed by drug addicts. We cannot pass judgment on people who does not trust that the courts, the prosecutors, and the police can administer justice if their sons were murdered by addicts and their daughters were raped by addicts.

If these people kill the murderers and the rapists, who are we to judge them?

The gospel according to President Duterte is that justice should be by retribution.

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