A STRANGE WORLD OF DOUBLE-STANDARD SENSE OF JUSTICE

A STRANGE WORLD OF DOUBLE-STANDARD SENSE OF JUSTICE
Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 19 September 2016

A few days ago, I was questioned by an Italian about the by now ‘famous’ summary killings in my country. A very hard egg to break question because he is clearly thinking about President Duterte’s extra-judicial killings. I said nothing specific at that moment because I am not really sure what to say, so first thing I did when I reached home, is to open my computer to search the internet for facts.

And sure enough, what the internet shows are mostly EJKs under Duterte while the bigger slice under the administrations fro Marcos (who originated it) is hardly mentioned andis practically enclosed in parenthesis when mentioned. Exposing the truth remains a failing point to the mainstream media.

Extrajudicial killing is not explicitly defined in international law. Some broadly define it as a killing that is not sanctioned by the courts and done outside the legal system. The Philippine Supreme Court further refined this definition to also consider the political affiliation of the victim, the method of attack and alleged involvement of state agents.

The situation before Duterte

Salaries are low, with the past administrations turning its back on the farmers calling for higher wages. With the implementation of a program to add two additional years in secondary school and the rising cost of schooling, hundreds of thousands of students face the danger of not being able to continue schooling. Corruption is rampant in the government, with countless billions going into the pockets of government officials. Many of them are also from landed families themselves or have ties with corporate entities, making the Philippine government a platform for serving the interests of a chosen few.* Criminals, notably the illicit drug merchants, were free to perpetrate their criminal trade protected by powerful people in the government and uniformed services continue to get rich with their criminal ‘business’-  

With this much conflict and oppression in the Philippines, it would not be much of a wonder if criticism is abundant and social movements thrive in the country. Where there is oppression, there certainly will be resistance. Yet sadly, activists and their criticisms have been met by the government head-on with no less than bullets and blood. There was the incident a few months ago, well-known to the people but ignored by the streamline media of the massacre of farmers victims of El Nino phenomena, who were asking for government’s food subsidy  in Mindanao, who instead of assistance, were fronted by the police who shoot them indiscriminately killing and wounding many.

A Deadly Place for Human Rights Advocates

The Philippines is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to engage in human rights advocacy. Front Line Defenders, a global organization that protects human rights defenders, ranked the country the second most dangerous for human rights advocates. Global Witness, an international advocacy group fighting against environmental and human rights abuses, says it is the third-deadliest for environmental and Indigenous rights activists. Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes press freedom and the right of journalists to report the news without reprisal worldwide, sees it as the fourth-most dangerous country for journalists. In 2015, the US State Department concluded in its yearly report that "the most significant human rights problem continued to be extrajudicial killings … undertaken by security forces" in the Philippines.*

Human rights lawyers, judges and prosecutors have also been victims of extrajudicial killings. From 1999 to 2014, some 114 lawyers, judges and prosecutors have been killed, according to the International Association of People's Lawyers. Of these, 36 died under Aquino's watch (mid-2010 to end 2014). That's an average of two lawyers, judges or prosecutors per month.

It isn't only activists, lawyers and judges who have become victims. Civil society organizations have also experienced attacks on their development workers. The list of development workers killed include William Geertman, a Dutch NGO executive who has been living in the Philippines since the 1970s and whose organization was active in providing disaster relief and humanitarian services to farmers. He was shot in the back inside his office's compound. Another much-publicized case was that of NGO executive Emerito Samarca. His organization implemented food security and alternative learning programs for Indigenous peoples in Mindanao. He was found hogtied and stabbed by paramilitary forces allegedly employed by the military.* Priests and religious people were also victims. Father Fausto Tentorio, lovingly called ‘Father Pops’ by parishioners, was killed in front of his Parish church witnessed by terrified people. Father Tentorio advocated indigenous people’s rights and a vocal critic of big foreign and local corporations who are usurping indigenous lands for big scale mining and plantations for export agro-products and illegal loggers.

The difference

While the extra-judicial killings in the past government administration were directed against people’s advocates wrongfully and maliciously tagged as “enemies of the State”, was done to preserve the corrupt status quo, the present government of President Duterte is targeting the real enemies of the the Philippine society. Extra-judicial killings is an indefensable human rights violation. We cannot give any excuse for it.

But it is also not right to criminalize a President for doing something his predecessors has omitted to do. The fight against the drug problem has been willfully and criminally neglected by the past administrations because it is lucrative for them or at least for their cronies too. In the past, the drug lords were also processed and put to prison. But they were left to their business by corrupt officials who receive big sums of money from the drug lords, so much so that the present authorities discovered drug-producing laboratories are operating inside the national penitentiary complete with an arsenal of fire arms and ammunition. It was found that the drug lords are held in luxurious cells and living like kings inside the prison. 

And critics were silent about it. 

Now, don’t we find it disconcerting that President Duterte is receiving barrage of criticisms for his drug wars while critics were silent in the past against the open violations of the laws by the corrupt officials of the past?

It is right to criticize what is wrong, but not to the extent of being unjust by numbing our minds to realities.

Truly, people has double standard in judging things.

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*Analisys- The Killing Fields: Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines By Mark Ambay, Truthout | News Analysis