Do not wait for 2022: Fight for justice and make our voices heard now

It is a scandal that for four years, a country calling itself Christian has endured, without much complaint, the detention without bail of Sen. Leila de Lima, on alleged crimes for which evidence is questionable. An even greater scandal is our people’s tolerance of the real context of her detention: tens of thousands of murders of poor drug suspects which De Lima sought to investigate, first as chair of the Commission on Human Rights and as justice secretary during Rodrigo Duterte’s iron-fisted reign as Davao City mayor, then as a legislator at the onset of his bloody sway as Philippine president.

The cases against De Lima are a vendetta, and a threat to other critics, by a despot whose ideological response to social problems and to opposition is repression and violence, thinly disguised as “rule of law.” That De Lima has been charged of grave offenses in which some of her accusers have admitted participating, yet have not themselves been charged, shows the selective application of this distorted “rule of law.” We pray that the recent granting by Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 of De Lima’s plea to dismiss one of the cases on the basis of weak evidence is a sign that our courts still have enough integrity to withstand the machinations of a man whose mission is to twist our democratic institutions into a practical dictatorship.

Yet while our judicial system resists this mission in fits and starts, Filipinos have mostly displayed a disturbing equanimity amid the massacre of the destitute and the mangling of democracy. This is not entirely our people’s fault. The administration and its supporters have, through social and mainstream mass media, dispensed a daily dose of deadly propaganda which our people, lacking access to reliable sources of information, have trustingly ingested like cyanide in milk from a homicidal parent. The pandemic and its economic effects have shifted their attention to the quotidian struggle to earn a living and still stay well, leaving little energy for the battle for democracy.

Yet there are enough Christians who know what is going on, and who have the capacity to make their voices heard. Some religious leaders of the Christian churches have obeyed the Lord’s injunction in Isaiah 58:1 to “cry out full-throated and unsparingly” and “tell my people their wickedness.” To those Christians who hear and understand, yet say that nothing can be done but pray and wait for the end of this administration, we say: Your silent complicity stains your consciences with the blood of the poor and of our dying democracy. If you do not speak up and act now, 2022 will bring no change, except for the continuing onslaught of the lethal change that Mr. Duterte promised when he ran for president in 2016.

We call on Christians to read and pray over the signs of our times, to repent of complacency, and to discern what actions can be taken together, even in a pandemic, to make our voices heard by those in government and the judiciary whose consciences are not yet dead. Appeal to them to accelerate the process of justice for Senator De Lima. Appeal to them to stop the carnage that she protested, and that goes on despite its invisibility in mainstream media. Appeal to them to resist the deformation of our democracy.

(Sgd) MEMBERS OF GOMBURZA: SISTER TERESITA ALO, SFIC; FR. ROBERTO REYES; FR. FLAVIE L. VILLANUEVA, SVD; RUBY G. ALCANTARA; LOT LUMAWIG ALLANIGUE; TERESITA S. CASTILLO; DIANE CATIBOG; LUCIA LUCAS CHAVEZ; PERCIVAL CHAVEZ; ELEANOR R. DIONISIO; VERONICA ESTER MENDOZA; ANGELO SILVA