System failure

Human rights advocates registered their protest, and I heard expressions of sympathy for the weeping woman who protested on TV that her relative was not a drug pusher. The man was among the 11 drug suspects who were paraded by cops around the public market in Tanauan, Batangas in a “Flores de Pusher” – a mock Flores de Mayo or Santacruzan.

Generally, however, there was little public outcry against the public shaming of drug suspects – an initiative of Tanauan Mayor Antonio Halili.

Neither was there any widespread protest over the reward dangled by Cebu City-elect Tomas Osmeña for the wounding or killing of anyone caught in the act of committing a crime. Police and civilians alike can collect the reward – P5,000 for wounding, P50,000 for a kill – as long as the gun used is licensed, Osmeña said.

Filipinos have been steeped in democratic ideals long enough to realize that even when a person is caught in flagrante delicto, the operative word is “suspect” ­– that there is such a thing as presumption of innocence until guilt is established in court beyond reasonable doubt.

Ideally, that’s the process of attaining justice. It’s a testament to the weakness of the justice system that freedom-loving Pinoys, who value civil rights, readily look the other way in the face of short cuts to justice.

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In reality, what normally happens is that if a person is arrested for the serious offense of drug trafficking, for example, it will take several years before the case is resolved and the felon begins serving a sentence – that is if he doesn’t manage to escape by bribing jailers or judges.

As we keep seeing, in case the drug dealer finally ends up at the National Penitentiary, he can continue running his business while at the same time living in five-star comfort in an air-conditioned cell with bathtub and karaoke, with periodic health checkups in the country’s best hospitals outside prison.

We can’t even say that there oughta be a law – since we have more than enough laws against such abuses, but they are not enforced.

Rodrigo Duterte tapped into this long-simmering public frustration, promising a drastic quick fix, and won the presidency by the widest margin ever in our history.

The message has not been lost on other politicians. We’ll likely see Halili and Osmeña copycats in the coming weeks.

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Pinoys know that the long-term remedy to deteriorating peace and order is an efficient criminal justice system. But no one can seem to fix what’s broken or excise the rot.

President Aquino openly denigrated the judiciary and used the vast powers of the presidency to kick out a chief justice and ease out an ombudsman whom he deemed to be in the way of his anti-corruption campaign. But structural reforms in the judiciary are largely the responsibility of the Supreme Court, which has failed to set the example for swift, efficient justice.

Presidents can do their part by ensuring that appointments and promotions are based on merit rather than partisan considerations and gratitude for campaign support.

We will never have efficient justice as long as magistrates are appointed and promoted based chiefly on connections rather than merit. And we will never have blind justice if magistrates have to keep repaying politicians or the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) for their appointment or promotion.

People were actually heartened by Duterte’s public break with his longtime supporter Apollo Quiboloy. The Davao pastor denied that he was trying to meddle in Duterte’s selection of his administration officials, but that was what the incoming president broadly indicated in his remarks.

Whether Duterte can do the same with the INC remains to be seen. Following the ugly internal rift in its leadership, the talk is that the INC can no longer guarantee a solid bloc vote. As in 2010 when it expressed support for candidate Noynoy Aquino only when surveys showed him headed for a sure win, the INC also threw its support behind Duterte only in the final week of the campaign, after all surveys consistently showed him pulling away even without INC endorsement.

In the early days of his administration, P-Noy reportedly thumbed down job applicants endorsed by the religious group. But later, even daang matuwid had to woo INC support for its candidates, giving in to pressure on appointments notably in the Bureau of Customs.

Whether Duterte will continue this practice is being watched by those who expect him to deliver on his campaign promise of dramatic change.

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Being a former prosecutor, Duterte is surely aware that developing meritocracy in the judiciary is a requirement in creating a society where the rule of law prevails and the criminal justice system works with deadly efficiency.

Having served for a long time as a local executive, Duterte is also aware that many crimes are fueled by extreme poverty. Another long-term approach to reducing criminality is to improve per capita income, which means providing decent employment, raising the quality of public education and generally boosting development efforts.

While poverty is no excuse for committing crimes, the poor tend to be at the receiving end of extrajudicial law enforcement. Wealthy offenders will never be paraded in a “Flores de Pusher” and can exploit all the loopholes provided by law to win exoneration. And the wealthiest crooks can even win high office, or be pardoned without ever setting foot in a prison cell.

Duterte is the first candidate to win the presidency on an unequivocal promise to kill criminals and dramatically reduce the crime problem within three to six months. Filipinos obviously are holding him to that promise, and meanwhile are showing forbearance toward copycat politicians.

The public expectation is that the means will justify the end, which is a safer Philippines. I know even certain foreign governments that welcome Duterte’s mailed-fist approach to criminality.

The bad guys will probably lie low during a state-sponsored killing spree. But the punishment must fit the crime, and if too many people suffer from swift but harsh justice, or if innocents become victims of extrajudicial methods of law enforcement, it can breed resentment and sow the seeds of further peace and order problems. Martial law was the best recruiter for the communist insurgency. There are those who will fight back; not everyone will go meekly to a state-sponsored turkey shoot or public shaming.

With the public behind him, Duterte’s promise to play rough with criminals will probably work, even to the horror of human rights advocates. He is expected not only to deal with criminals but also to purge law enforcement agencies of scalawags and go after the corrupt.

But his victory will be complete when Filipinos can rest assured that the law is more powerful than a bullet, and that the law works for everyone, regardless of one’s station in life.