What if you were mistaken for a drug addict?

SINGAPORE—Could a Philippine president be humbled by a foreign-looking man waving the Constitution on TV?

When Hillary Clinton launched her presidential candidacy at last month’s Democratic National Convention, Americans wildly applauded the brief speech of such a man.

US Army Capt. Humayun Khan, a Punjabi Muslim, was stationed in Baghdad in 2004. Iraqi drivers would misunderstand guards at his camp’s gate and be shot by mistake.

A taxicab drove suspiciously to the gate during the busy morning hour when Iraqi workers were entering the camp. Captain Khan approached it, probably to prevent the driver from getting shot. Suddenly, he ordered his men to take cover.

The taxi detonated, killing Captain Khan and two Iraqis. But Captain Khan saved countless soldiers and workers.

His father, lawyer Khizr Khan, spoke at the convention to protest opposing candidate Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. He introduced his family “as patriotic American Muslims.” Were it up to Trump, Captain Khan could not be a US citizen. Trump has since named the Philippines a terrorist country alongside Iraq and Syria.

Of the many things he could have said, Khizr Khan chose: “Donald Trump… Have you even read the US Constitution?”

He pulled a pamphlet from his breast pocket, held it up, and, to a standing ovation despite his heavy Pakistani accent, proclaimed: “I will gladly lend you my copy.”

He asked Trump to look at the graves in Arlington Cemetery, where Captain Khan is buried, a small crescent on his gravestone. “You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities.”

He ended, with anger and grief: “You have sacrificed nothing—and no one.”

It was a moment that makes one proud to be a lawyer, teach human rights, and live in a democracy.

Trump responded that lawyer Khan’s wife Ghazala stood silently beside the podium because her religion stopped her from speaking.

She responded with a Washington Post column titled, “Trump criticized my silence. He knows nothing about true sacrifice.” The Post published an equally powerful column by Captain Khan’s general. Truly, a nation’s soul is captured in its newspapers’ op-eds, not the headlines.

A college friend periodically asks me why I bother writing. Most Filipinos would not care to think legal questions through, he opines, and would rather have a strong leader dictate to them. “Sisyphus’ Lament” is a joke from when I chaired the Philippine Law Journal, alluding that asking Filipinos to think law through is the epitome of pointless labor.

Perhaps the ordinary Filipino prefers to follow everything the government says, so freedom to dissent matters little. He sees himself as a brown-skinned Catholic, so the perspectives of ethnic Chinese and Muslim Filipinos are alien. Perhaps jaded Filipinos believe courts and prosecutors have no integrity, so visualize haggling with authority over institutional due process.

Most of us cannot picture ourselves accused of being a drug pusher and shot in the streets or called out as a drug protector on TV. It is far easier to picture oneself as the victim of a criminal, a snatcher who preys on commuters if not a drug crazed homicidal maniac. It is easy to internalize that the victims in the front pages deserve to die.

Law demands that a king stop and ask for permission to enter even the humblest hovel. Human rights allow one man to stand against a nation.

But Philippine scholars question whether aspects of our law are alien impositions transplanted without cultural context or developed institutions. Before waxing poetic, one must remember that such one man’s vetos draw their power from a society’s conviction that these must be respected even when the majority disagree with the one man.

The majority is always entitled to redraw the line where the one man’s rights lie, setting aside for now the formal process to amend our Constitution. But they must do so knowing they may someday be the one man.

Perhaps the caveat is that present discussions seem premised not on redrawing the line, but that it has no value. Perhaps we should reflect where we would draw the line.

Perhaps it is easier to picture oneself accused of being a drug addict. For example, police and military personnel have been submitting to surprise voluntary drug tests. Some have proposed expanding drug testing to reporters, schoolchildren and government employees.

Recall how a new law in 2013 scrapped mandatory drug testing for all driver’s license applicants, imposed by a 2002 law. The requirement was inutile because no drug test could catch a potential violator who schedules the test himself. Even Sen. Tito Sotto stated it only printed money for drug test centers.

Should an ordinary citizen be punished for refusing a drug test? If the government may not search one’s pockets without a warrant, this should apply with greater force to one’s bloodstream.

Indeed, the US Supreme Court ruled that while mandatory drug test policies may be valid, forcing blatantly ineffective drug tests violates human rights. I realize I wrote this in the Philippine Law Journal in 2002, citing my idols Michael Tan, Conrado de Quiros and Pilosopo Tasyo, and quipping in frustration that “perhaps all the work of the academe is actually written in hieroglyphics.”

Would one draw a line for expansive drug testing, then? Where would one redraw other lines when we return to normalcy after today’s frenetic and widely supported antidrug campaign?

Great ideas have emotional, beyond intellectual, resonance. Filipinos see greatness in boxing matches, singing contests and beauty pageants. Perhaps one day, we will see more than a piece of paper when an anonymous man waves our more verbose Constitution on TV.

* * *

React: [email protected], Twitter @oscarfbtan, facebook.com/OscarFranklinTan