Neutralization: Euphemism for kill orders

He “doth protest too much, methinks,” to borrow a line from William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” aptly describes Sen. Ronald dela Rosa’s protestations while splitting hairs with Sen. Risa Hontiveros and human rights lawyer Jose “Chel” Diokno over the use of the word “neutralization,” a euphemism for “to kill.” This was at last Monday’s Senate hearing where former president Rodrigo “IWKY” Duterte was summoned to appear. There, he declared and admitted in so many words that “I have a death squad,” (News, 10/29/24). Straight from the horse’s mouth. Not a bombshell, if you ask me, for that part of him is an open book. But this is getting ahead of the story.

Dela Rosa, former chief of the Philippine National Police and chief implementor of Duterte’s brutal war on drugs that reportedly killed more than 30,000 human beings, may be correct in quoting Google that “neutralization” merely means “to make something ineffective, counteract, nullify.” In military parlance, it means “to put out of action or make incapable of action; to neutralize an enemy position.” In my 24 units of college chemistry, the word “neutralize” had to do with acids and stuff.

But everybody and their cousins know that in police context, the verb “neutralize” means to kill; “to be neutralized” is to be killed. Neutralization, a noun, means killing. The title of Patricia Evangelista’s best-selling opus “Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in my Country” (Random House, 2023) comes to mind. The main title was at the heart of a police officer’s blood-curdling utterances.

The Oxford definition of “euphemism” is “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” Its verb form is “euphemized” while the process is called “euphemization.” It comes from the Greek word that means “well-spoken” or “to use words of good omen.” The name Euphemia is of Greek origin.

Flashback: arbitrary killing during the Marcos dictatorship was euphemized (by victims, survivors, and their kin) as “salvaging,” quite the opposite of what salvage should mean, which is to save. It stuck. I had heard the words “gin salbid” (was salvaged) from people in remote parts of Mindanao and the Visayas during the dark years of martial rule. Might they have meant “savaged”? There was no time then to dwell on nuances when hunted people were on the run and captured activists were being kept in “safe houses,” a euphemism for torture chambers. “Pompyang”(cymbals) meant clapping on a victim’s two ears.

Duterte, who fancies being called “The Punisher,” does not use euphemisms to temper his unprintable profanities. How many times had he barked, “Patya!”—a Visayan imperative command meaning “Patayin mo!” or “Kill them!”—accompanied by a slew of foul vituperations? (In Ilonggo/Hiligaynon, we say, “Patya ang suga” or kill the light.)

But what’s in the word? Again, to channel the bard, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” (“Romeo and Juliet”) just as a blanket command to kill using euphemisms such as neutralize would be as criminal. Self-defense is the common excuse because the suspect reportedly fought back or “nanlaban.”

The Duterte-era word “tokhang,” a portmanteau of “katok” (to knock) and “hangyo” (Visayan word for “to ask”) meant to invite small-time drug users, pushers, and couriers to please come out of the woodwork has taken on a new meaning. Tokhang did not have its day to ripen into a euphemism to simply mean a dreaded invite. Overnight, tokhang’s enforcers transmogrified into killers. Those on the tokhang list “needed killing.” Tokhang meant arbitrary killing with rewards points for those who carried out the order. “Natokhang” meant biting the dust.

All these were at the core of the Senate investigations, this is what the International Criminal Court is doing a case buildup on, for crimes committed against humanity during Duterte’s watch.

Trying to neutralize former senator Leila de Lima was one of Duterte’s unspeakable crimes. In her case, neutralization did not mean physically killing her, but killing her spirit. She was made to suffer solitary confinement for close to seven years without bail because of drug-related trumped-up charges against her. As chair of the Commission on Human Rights and secretary of justice during President Benigno Aquino III’s presidency, she investigated and exposed the killings in Davao City where Duterte was mayor. As president, Duterte summoned all his powers to silence De Lima and have false witnesses testify that she received drug money. After Duterte’s term was over, these witnesses retracted one by one, and De Lima was acquitted of the three cases against her. Justice was on her side. She could not be neutralized. Fancy seeing the two within spitting distance of each other at the Senate hearing.

Neutralization may take many forms. Dela Rosa’s fulmination about the meaning of neutralization warranted a follow-up question: Would he consider De Lima’s seven-year incarceration a form of neutralization? Yes or no?

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