MANILA, Philippines – Warning that the nation is hurtling towards impunity and inhumanity, Sen. Leila de Lima sounded the alarm yesterday against the rising cases of “do-it-yourself justice” and called for an end to extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals that she said were being encouraged by the Duterte administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.
In a privilege speech, the senator expressed full support for President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs but said “there must be a way other than this method that brings us to our collective descent into impunity, fear and ultimately, utter and complete inhumanity.”
“We cannot wage the war against drugs with blood. We will only be trading drug addiction with another more malevolent kind of addiction. This is the compulsion for more killing, killings that have now included the innocent,” De Lima said.
“Impunity, once unleashed, has no boundaries. It does not care who dies. It does not care who suffers. It does not care who the victims are. Impunity has no sense of right or wrong. It is as amoral as it is immoral,” she said.
She admitted that public reaction to the administration’s anti-drug campaign, including the summary executions, appeared to be favorable, as indicated in Duterte’s 91 percent approval rating in the latest surveys.
The senator, however, said Filipinos could go on being indifferent and desensitized to the daily executions “without ultimately becoming a nation bound by a collective sociopathy.”
“We now casually eat our breakfast watching human beings wrapped in packing tape, or lying in pools of blood,” De Lima said. “We must force ourselves to be reminded that the victims are always flesh and blood to their families and loved ones. Hindi sila suman o dinuguan.”
De Lima also warned of tell-tale signs of summary executions of those who allegedly were killed in armed encounters with policemen and other law enforcers.
There is also a great probability that many of those killed were actually innocent, including a math teacher from Ateneo de Manila University.
The country has processes and punishes wrongdoers as well as the Bill of Rights that accords the right to be presumed innocent, De Lima reminded law enforcers.
“What is worrisome in this situation is that the war on drugs is becoming a convenient pretext for misguided or utterly corrupt law enforcers to kill just any one,” the senator said.
She warned that Filipinos would now judge others – particularly those found dead – based on what was written on cardboard near their corpses.
“The vigilantes have introduced to us do-it-yourself justice. Never mind the police investigation, never mind the public prosecutor, never mind the courts and judges. This is DIY justice at work. All you need is an acrylic marker, a cardboard, some packing tape and, of course, something to stab or shoot the victim with. And there is no filing fee,” De Lima said.
‘Track record’
De Lima also lamented that since she had pushed for a congressional inquiry into the summary executions, she had been subject of vicious attacks in social media, and from Duterte’s officials and allies.
She said such attacks on her could be construed as an assault on the Senate even as she vowed not to be cowed by such attacks.
“Students armed with nothing but courage and conviction have started to act. They are protesting with cardboards on their chests, telling us that no one is safe. If these students, who do not have the protection of position or power, raise their voice against these daily assassinations and rub-outs, what does that make of me, an elected senator, if I keep silent?” she said.
Based on counts of various groups, including media organizations, the death toll involving suspected drug pushers now exceeds 700, about half found dead with cardboard tags identifying them as peddlers of illegal drugs, apparently killed by vigilantes.
De Lima, a former justice secretary and chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), has filed a resolution seeking a Senate inquiry into the summary executions.
The chamber is set to start the inquiry in the coming weeks even as some senators, including Sen. Panfilo Lacson – a former chief of the Philippine National Police – remain cool to the inquiry.
Among those present in the gallery while De Lima was delivering her speech was her successor at the CHR, Chito Gascon, who also vowed a separate probe into the extrajudicial killings.
Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito opposed the holding of an investigation into the killings in the Senate, saying there was already a law punishing extrajudicial or summary killings and there was no need to have a hearing in aid of legislation.
“Given that extrajudicial killing is proved, then what shall the Senate do? We can’t do anything because we cannot prosecute,” Ejercito said in a statement after De Lima delivered her speech. – With Helen Flores, Non Alquitran