Have we become complicit?

I ended a recent contributed commentary thus: “I look to the sociologist-anthropologists the most, because they […] study us as a people, what/how we were, are, and what we are becoming.” I wanted to know “Why do Duterte’s ratings stay high?” (Opinion, 7/15/17) despite the killings, killer-words, a climate of fear, a dismaying frequency of promoting, reinstating, appointing, awarding, rewarding, threatening, pardoning, jailing, on political whim and naked power.

Keen observers of humanity, both Melba Padilla Maggay in “When ‘evil comes up like a flower’” (Opinion, 8/26/17) and Randy David in “Questions for an ‘eyewitness generation’” (Opinion, 8/20/17) didn’t disappoint. They went deeper, where all I could surmise was “something has happened to the Filipino character.” They explained one way by which a people can be led to accept, then approve, then applaud patently evil acts, cruel and gross language topped solely and repeatedly by its author.

The process is at once subtle, seductive, sinister; “subtle” because we don’t even know it’s happening, “seductive” because it is clothed in the “wicked charm” of evil, “sinister” because it is planned and accomplished in the shadows.

The typical strongman catalyzes the process (David).

The goal and multiple reports, in this case of extrajudicial killings, is repeated like a mantra, “routinizing … the rhetoric” (Maggay).

Then the EJK is fused to “a compelling reason … a cause (the eradication of illegal drugs) that touches the core of our beliefs and aspirations” (Maggay)

Then the blurring begins. The faces of evil and of good meld as one, and who’s to say which is which?

Unconsciously, the voice of conscience becomes faint. Moral convictions are neutralized and diluted. First, the numbing, like anesthesia, then legitimization, then normalization, now circulating as the “new normal.”

Evil now actually looks good. We don’t even realize what hit us. How many times have we heard, “Mabuti nga; patayin na yung mga drug addicts(It’s good that drug addicts are killed).”

David asks: “At what point did we lose our will to defend ourselves…? When did we begin to rationalize violence…?” Who knows when exactly? Maggay’s classic title perfectly captures this insidious descent of evil, morphed into an accepted and applauded good.

Haven’t we seen something like this happen before? Ferdinand Marcos activated corruption to unequaled heights, from him, down to the lowliest bureaucrat. We can ill afford to institutionalize another evil habit. We were brought up to believe that we are children of love and light; it is saddening to be reminded that there lurks a dark, vulnerable corner in our beings.

Has the majority consisting of your friend or family and mine, of common man as well as educated elite, backing the fount and source of this kill-command, become complicit?

Have we, the silent, consenting majority, too indifferent to what’s happening around us as long as “it isn’t me,” too timid to expose our signature on a statement of protest or to join a movement, too ensconced in the safe cocoon of pietism and parochial work or a gratifying charity, those with interests and connections to protect, too busy to “share” or “send” the flow of critical commentary from the internet, or just too comfortable to care—have we all become complicit?

If so, heed Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Leonen: “We are complicit when we are not critical. We are part of the conspiracy of the powerful if we remain silent…. Slowly we are losing our collective power as sovereign (Commencement Address, Ateneo School of Government, 8/20/16). And Ramon Farolan: “Silence not an option” (Opinion, 8/28/17). And a Facebook post by Katrina Lagman that the thousands murdered, foreign allies insulted, women and LGBT denigrated, islands as good as ceded to China, a hero’s burial for Marcos, martial law in Mindanao—“that’s on YOU.”

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Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist.