Divining Delphic messages
PRRD and his critics agree on several fundamental points: We face a serious drug problem that demands attention; the police have a mandate to suppress the drug trade, and in the performance of their duty, they can use deadly force to protect their lives; some crooked cops are involved in the drug trade; extrajudicial killings (EJKs) cannot be condoned and due process must be followed in arresting drug suspects.
Despite this consensus, EJKs remain a concern: The EJK count shows that the police hear more clearly and execute more diligently PRRD’s directive to kill criminals than his caution to respect due process. Like the instructions of Apollo’s priest at Delphi in Greek mythology, PRRD’s message has become ambiguous and subject to alternative, defensible interpretations.
PRRD routinely expresses his confidence that the police know and comply with the requirements of due process. Hence, his repeated, often unqualified assurances that cops who kill criminals while on duty will receive presidential pardon.
But the presumed regularity of police action during official missions does not include the presumption that these operations will always and inevitably involve killing. Thus, police procedures require the investigation of all deaths during these missions. As the last Senate hearing on EJKs showed, many cases have not been fully investigated and resolved.
The PNP, unfortunately, has enough cases of police connivance in crimes to tarnish its reputation. The murder of Zenaida Luz, regional chair of the Oriental Mindoro Citizens Crime Watch, was an untimely reminder of the PNP’s checkered history.
Even before the Luz murder, the P2-million reward that PRRD promised for exposing “ninja cops” protecting drug syndicates reinforced suspicions that EJK and vigilante killings would serve to eliminate witnesses against police corruption. It validated concerns about enhancing the powers of an agency for a complex drug war before it had undergone some process of reform.
Other pronouncements clouded PRRD’s commitment to the protection of constitutional rights. He believes that users on shabu for six months are irreparably brain-damaged and pose a threat to the community. He has questioned whether such drug users retain the humanity that endows them with human rights. Where rehab was possible, he complained about the costs of treatment and the diversion of funds better used for education and social services.
Regrettably, the rage PRRD continues to direct at those who warn against human rights violations in the conduct of the drug war also prompts doubts about the message that he really wants to deliver to the police: Respect due process, or kill drug addicts and pushers, regardless of human rights. The question discounts the value of his reminders that the police comply with due process as proof of his commitment to human rights.
High performance rating in the surveys reflected the public’s willingness to permit PRRD a long leash to push his war on drugs. But the SWS survey also showed 94 percent of respondents considering as Somewhat Important (23 percent) or Very Important (71 percent) that arrested drug suspects remain alive.
The survey did not probe why respondents held this view. A few may recall the constitutional prohibition against summary execution. Many, perhaps, believed that even drug addicts deserved a chance at redemption; even Sen. Manny Pacquiao admitted to using all kinds of drugs in his youth. He was fortunate to have escaped the fate of those now dumped dead on the streets with a cardboard sign branding them as drug users and pushers.
And, perhaps, they feared themselves vulnerable to EJK. SWS reported that 72 percent of the D-E classes, to which the greater number of EJK victims belonged, rejected the killing of suspects as Very Important, against 57 percent of the A-B-C classes.
This message on EJK, clearer than the oracles at Delphi, comes not from foreign meddlers but from the people to whom PRRD holds himself accountable. Will he hear and heed their call?
Edilberto C. de Jesus ([email protected]) is professor emeritus at the Asian Institute of Management. Prof. Rofel Brion’s Tagalog translation of this column and others earlier published, together with other commentaries, are in https://secondthoughts.ph.
