Justice from the barrel of a gun
Last weekend, I attended the national convention of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) in Antipolo, Rizal, which had for its theme the country's political, economic and human rights situation under the Duterte administration.
On this occasion I was able to meet the old guards of the anti-Marcos dictatorship movement. To recall, FLAG was founded in 1974 by senators Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, and Joker Arroyo during the martial law period under Ferdinand Marcos.
It was perhaps inevitable that someone would ask me during the convention what my views are regarding the Duterte administration's war on drugs, martial law in Mindanao, and overall political situation.
While I've made my fair share of criticisms regarding Duterte's roughhousing the country's key institutions, particularly the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court, I have tried to keep a sober assessment of the country's situation under Duterte.
After all, the general business climate is still upbeat and people can still speak freely, though with some amount of fear if they get into the crosshairs of the administration. One cannot also ignore some of the positive changes that have happened since Duterte took office.
Still, Duterte's war on drugs and the specter of a revolutionary government have me feeling uncomfortable as to what his administration might do in the name of "change." There are those in the opposition for instance (whom pro-Duterte fanatics call "dilawans" or "yellowtards") who think that the serious problem on illegal drugs is merely being propped up as a boogeyman designed to make people submit to authoritarian rule.
While I am still fairly skeptical of such view, it is difficult to reconcile with the thought that Duterte's method of relying on brute force and on-the-ground law enforcement action is really winning the war against drugs.
Up to now, Duterte has yet to acknowledge and effectively address the obvious fact that the reason we are facing a grave problem on illegal drugs is the existence of "affordances," or the social and political environment that allows the illegal drugs trade to proliferate.
These affordances are: dysfunctional families, corruption in the law enforcement system, and corruption and inefficiency in the justice system. Unless the government puts its money where its mouth is in addressing particularly the last two affordances, the war on drugs will always take the long and bloody route which will waste away not just our young but also our institutions of civility and order.
For starters, one from Senator Grace Poe during a Senate hearing over weeks ago: There is only one Internal Affairs Service lawyer for every 8,000 policemen. How can you catch and prosecute corrupt cops with that number?
The justice department, meanwhile, is undermanned and the courts underfunded. With an average annual caseload of over one million, a figure culled in 2009 yet, each judge would have to resolve over 600 cases every year.
Thus, don't be surprised when, in the words of FLAG national chairperson Jose Manuel Diokno, we have come to rely on laws "coming from the barrels of the guns, rather than from the gavels of our judges."
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I join the faithful and the entire Cebu community in mourning the death of Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, archbishop emeritus of Cebu. Those of my generation of Catholics in Cebu grew up with Cardinal Vidal as the soft-spoken yet influential national church leader, whose respect from the community traverses variant sectors.
My personal memory of Cardinal Vidal goes back to my acolyte days at the chapel of the Pink Sisters in Banilad, where I once served in a mass celebrated by the cardinal.
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