Overkill

While a gaggle of bystanders watches, a team of cops clad in fatigues, bulletproof vests, helmets and gas masks and toting assault rifles storms the place. They start grabbing people and wrestling those who resist to the ground. One cop is pinning someone on his back with his knee while pulling out handcuffs. The other cops who have ringed the place are eyeing the perimeter watchfully, alert for any signs of trouble. Several cops on motorcycles hover in the wings.

This is not Malaysia, about which we have been complaining for its nasty habit of tearing into crowds in search of Filipino illegals, and throwing them in jail, presuming them guilty until they can prove themselves innocent, or in possession of the proper papers.

This is the heart of Chinatown, in 168. I saw the pictures, taken by someone in the crowd. The “storm troopers” are cops armed with mission orders from the Bureau of Immigration to arrest illegals. The mission orders do not specify who to arrest, let alone their addresses, and are not backed by warrants from the courts. As in Malaysia, this is “to whom it may concern.”

Since December last year, the cops have been carrying out these raids in 168, 999, Lucky Chinatown, and 1188, terrifying shoppers and residents alike. The incident I mentioned took place early this month. Thus far, the raids have yielded, quite apart from a few illegals, several completely legal longtime residents and at least one five-year-old. The raids have extended to bodegas whose owners have been asked to show cause why these should not be closed down. Or as the Chinese there say, to “show cost” for it: Bodega owners have complained—privately, of course—of having had to cough up from P100,000 to P300,000 to be left alone.

Again, let us be clear. Do we want illegals, Chinese or otherwise, to be expelled from our shores? Yes. Do we want contraband to be seized and their sellers or hoarders arrested and jailed? Yes. Do we want government to crack down on criminals and criminality and do so with force and resolve? Yes.

Do we want to do all these in this way?

No.

At the very least, what’s iniquitous about it is that it’s a glaring violation of human rights. This is a case of doing things the Rodrigo Duterte way, which proves yet again the immense harm he is doing by the example he sets. At least Duterte knows who he wants to kill, this one is indiscriminate in who it wants to arrest.

Last we looked, the principle was still that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Last we looked, the principle was still that the authorities supplied just cause why a person should be arrested, or his bodega padlocked, and not the arrestee or owner why he or his property should not be so. Last we looked, the principle was still, as reaffirmed by the Department of Justice in 1999, that “the issuance of warrants of arrest by the Commissioner of Immigration for the sole purpose of investigation and before the issuance of a final order of deportation violates the right of a person to due process.”

Carrying this out, moreover, with cops in full battle gear in a fairly peaceful community makes it all the more iniquitous. Duterte’s proposition is that the best way to solve rice smuggling is by killing rice smugglers. The proposition here is that the best way to solve the problem of illegal aliens is to grab the nearest persons in the Chinese malls and jail them until they can prove themselves legal.

At the very most, this isn’t just iniquitous, this is dangerous.

You can’t find a worse time to do it than right now. We’re in the middle of a row with China, one where the rhetoric has become strident and the moves increasingly martial. An action like this taken against a predominantly Chinese population will not be seen as a purely internal affair. It will be colored by that dispute.

It could, and probably would, be seen as action that did not originate solely from the BI, with the cooperation of the Department of the Interior and Local Governments which provided the cops, but from the national government which gave it its full blessings. It could, and probably would, be interpreted as some kind of retaliation for China’s efforts to intimidate Filipino fishermen in the Spratlys, particularly driving them away by water cannon some weeks ago.

We’ve already seen how a wave of anti-Filipino sentiment is sweeping through China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Taiwan at one point made noises about keeping out visiting Filipinos and Hong Kong continues to demand an official apology from P-Noy for the Luneta massacre. Indeed, Hong Kong residents booed the visiting Azkals last year, which threatens to bring the dispute between governments to the level of the people themselves.

What now if China and Hong Kong and Taiwan were to ban overseas Filipino workers from their shores? Or if not ban OFWs, since they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did (they need OFWs for work they do not particularly like to do and Filipinos are the best caregivers), making getting into their shores the hardest thing in the world? What now if those three countries, like Malaysia, were to conduct periodic raids on communities known to host concentrations of Filipinos, the raiders carting them off indiscriminately and dumping them in jail until they can show documents or pay their way out, whichever comes first?

What now if the Chinese themselves, never mind their officials, were to presume Filipinos if not naturally given to smuggling at least to serving as drug mules, if not naturally given to gambling in casinos at least playing without work permits in clubs, if not naturally given to anarchy and subversion at least to being incapable of following laws and rules?

Overkill does not kill only its victims, it also kills its authors.