Drug war’s forgotten fatalities should be ‘wake-up call’

“Unclaimed corpses: Drug war’s forgotten fatalities” by Mariejo Ramos (11/2/18) was a timely reminder that should wake us up from the moral stupor of getting used to injustice and violence.

The story of a poor woman from Navotas who could not claim the body of her son, for the simple reason that she had no money for the funeral expenses, was tragic enough; but to learn that she had just lost her own husband a few days before that, also a victim of extrajudicial killings, would turn one speechless.

“Wrongdoing can only be avoided if those who are not wronged feel the same indignation at it as those who are,” Solon, Athens’ great legislator, said.

“When the wicked are on the increase, sin multiplies, but the upright will witness their downfall,” the Book of Proverbs, written also around the sixth century B.C., said.

It seems that people’s hearts have remained hardened 2,500 years after these words were written. If Jesus Christ had not told us, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,” life would be bitter.

FR. LUIS P. SUPAN, [email protected]