Where is the concern for human lives?

In your editorial “The road to vigilantism” (7/1/21), President Duterte was quoted as saying “The criminals must die, but you must live” in justifying his call to arm civilians to serve as law enforcement auxiliaries of the Philippine National Police.

This brought me back to one of his Sona speeches, where he spoke in the same puzzling language of life and death by saying that the concern of those criticizing his war on drugs was on human rights while his was on human lives, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

Of course, what he wanted people to believe was that his heart bled for the Filipinos, especially the youth whose lives were supposedly being destroyed by drugs, so it was perfectly acceptable to liquidate drug addicts who happened to be mostly young people in poor communities in order to solve the drug menace. But going into the last year of his presidency, Mr. Duterte, by his own admission, has failed to solve the illegal drug problem which in his first year he promised to solve in six months. And what has been the price of his war on drugs? Per the official count, more than 6,000 deaths due to police operations. Per the estimates of human rights groups, about 20,000 deaths, including vigilante-style killings and the deaths of 54 children caught in the crossfire. Big-time drug lords convicted: zero.

Where is the concern for human lives here? And still Mr. Duterte wants to arm civilians? What in his track record can convince us that he is really concerned about Filipino lives? And now he wants to run for vice president in a father-daughter dynasty setup just like in Davao City, because he is so proud of what he started and wants to finish it.

I hope and pray Filipino voters will not be duped again by empty promises and self-serving claims to patriotism and concern for human lives. The stakes are much too high for the country in the next presidential election; we cannot be complacent about its outcome.

DONATO P. SOLIVEN
Antipolo City