Roll back the culture of violence

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” writer Isaac Asimov once said.

He may as well have been talking about the present-day Philippines where violence, especially the physical kind, has been on full display for everyone in society to see and experience. Last week, Filipinos scrolling up their social media feeds watched in agape disbelief and anger as a mobile phone video emerged of dismissed former policeman Wilfredo “Willie” Gonzales disgracing himself further by pulling out a handgun and cocking it while assaulting and verbally abusing a cyclist during a road altercation in Quezon City.

The latest road rage incident drew more public outrage after it was reported that the victim had agreed not to press charges and was even asked to pay P500 for scratches on the Gonzales’ car. To add insult to injury, the Quezon City police even held a press conference for the gun-toting assailant, where he lectured vloggers to be responsible in posting videos.

A few days before this incident, 15-year-old John Francis Ompad was killed after being “accidentally” hit by Rizal police shooting at his 19-year-old brother, who supposedly tried to flee on a motorbike after being flagged down by the plainclothes law enforcers.

Earlier this month, 17-year-old Jerhode “Jemboy” Baltazar was killed by Navotas police who mistook him for a murder suspect they were pursuing.

What is happening to our police force? And what is happening to the Filipino psyche which, in recent times, seems to have become more accustomed and predisposed toward violence?

There seems to be a growing inclination of immediately resorting to force to resolve unfavorable situations, instead of taking the correct and prescribed path of exhausting all available means first before drawing one’s firearm and squeezing the trigger in anger.

What should be the last resort has now become the first recourse. “Shoot first, ask questions later,” has become the mantra of Filipinos, it seems, especially among those entrusted with the responsibility of using force only when all else has failed.

To be sure, this country’s predisposition toward violence as a means of solving disputes is nothing new. One need only take a cursory glance at the news headlines over the decades to realize that pulling out a knife in a bar fight, drawing one’s pistol during road rage, or hiring hitmen to kill rival politicians is a familiar Filipino method of “getting things done.”

But, anecdotally, the Philippines seems to be experiencing a sharp increase in incidences of violence in recent years if one were to go by what we see and read in the news and on social media. By these measures, it certainly looks like violence in our country is rising to a crescendo.

One needed only to listen to a former president announcing his threats to kill or have killed those he found undesirable, whether it be one person he was cussing out on national television or drug war suspects by the thousands. Worse, he actively encouraged law enforcers and the military—people who have sworn to uphold the rule of law and fight for the rights of the weak and innocent—to disregard due process in the performance of their mission, assuring them that he would take the heat in their stead.

In doing so, he let the proverbial genie out of the bottle. Who knows how long it will take to put it back?

It is important that we take a stand against rising violence now and declare to our politicians and policymakers that we will stand for no more because this is not the society we want for ourselves or the kind of future we want for our children.

It is important to act while the crescendo is still deafening to our ears. If we don’t, our collective psyche will adjust and, instead of reacting in shock violent incidents, we may well find ourselves shrugging off the next one in indifference. It is important to react with alarm, curiosity, and proactiveness to the sound of a gunshot, lest we allow ourselves to become blasé and lulled into inaction. We cannot allow violence to be normalized.

Before it’s too late, President Marcos should take concrete steps to rein in the predisposition of law enforcers toward violence and make it clear that what was encouraged in previous years will no longer be tolerated. And such a pronouncement should be backed up by concrete action of prosecuting those who had violated their solemn oath as our protectors.

The same concrete actions must also be taken against citizens who have violated the law by drawing their firearms in road rage situations where it was not warranted. It is important to send this corrective message out to the public, especially with the sharp increase in private gun ownership in recent years.

The time to act is now. If let this problem pass unaddressed—if we ignore it until we become indifferent—the next victim of a policeman shooting before asking questions or of a gun pulled out in a traffic altercation could be someone we love.