EJK in another light
No homilies were delivered in all Sunday masses at Roman Catholic churches throughout the country yesterday. Instead a pastoral letter from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines was read. The letter tried to explain the self-admitted silence of the Church on many burning issues of the day.
In a way, the admission of silence tended to indicate that the views expressed by certain highly-politicized bishops over the same issues, while probably shared by most members of the CBCP, were not official statements of the organization at the time they were expressed, especially since they were made in press releases and media interviews, not in pastoral letters.
Anyway, the points raised in the pastoral letter are all well-taken and are part of the concerns that the Church must minister to. And, delivered as they were in a pastoral letter and read inside churches, even those who may disagree with some or all of the positions taken by the Church on the issues raised will have to submit to the right of the Church to express them.
However, on the matter of extrajudicial killings resulting from the government's aggressive war on illegal drugs, the Church, just like many of those critical of the campaign, appears to have fallen into the trap of making conclusions based on the wrong or insufficient facts. The temptation had always been to look at the figures and from there draw conclusions.
But the numbers alone do not tell the whole story even if it is correct that a death toll running into the thousands is certainly too high and a cause for alarm. There is a need to check other facts in order to put perspective to the narrative, as well as to look at everything with fresh eyes, say with those of the police.
For example, why doesn't the fact that there are millions of illegal firearms all in the wrong hands never considered in every telling and retelling of a sad EJK story. If even quiet, decent, and law-abiding people feel the need to have firearms, certainly it needs to be acknowledged that hoodlums do as well, with even greater compulsion.
Surely, if you lead a life that revolves around illegal drugs, guns cannot be far away from that life. There is a need to admit with honesty that when a drug situation arises, the gun is almost always the means of last resort. Sadly, when a gun enters into the picture, almost always there are bound to be casualties.
Now the police may kill in self-defense. But he may also do it in self- preservation. Cops have families too, you know. And just like everyone, they do not want to leave any widows and orphans behind. Do not ever believe that cops just shoot people on sight. They are humans like you and me. They became cops probably because that was their only shot at life.
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