Let me begin my article this week with a little Disney Channel reference. If you are like me, born in the early 90’s, you are most likely familiar with this TV series called Boy Meets World. To which this show had a spin-off, Girl Meets World, that started airing years ago. Last week’s episode just struck on how we should deal with current events.

 

Cory put this topic before his class as a point of debate: “does the sun only shine during the day?” Riley argued that the sun rises and the sun sets, or as she puts it: “Poom!” Farkle on the other hand argued about the constancy of where the sun is, after the sun sets on one face of the planet it rises on another part. This topic was eventually built up on a much bigger lesson Cory wants to present to his students about the nature of human character. If you watched that episode, you knew that the life lesson was to look and understand all the sides of the issue.

Warning: some of the images below in this article might be gruesome to look at. Please proceed with discretion.

 

This now brings us to the political ranting of the present.

 

Granting that I have to be diplomatic on my political opinion I have to respond on aspects other than what concerns America.

 

First, let’s talk about the recent political killings. What about it? Over the past month, countries have had to deal with deaths that raise political questions. In the United States, we had the shootings that occurred in Baton Rouge, Dallas, Florida, and Minnesota. And in my homeland, since the beginning of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte (who is practically the much smarter Asian version of Donald Trump), people have been concerned about the murder of many alleged drug addicts. This topic that came from different parts of the world has raised some common red flags namely the concern about security.

 

With these kinds of violence happening, people are asking all the more about the safety of their own neighborhood. Again, there are more than two sides to this: one is the notion that before they can walk or drive around without seeing police cars and ambulances rallying around a few blocks away from their own home and then all of a sudden they are fearing that blood be found in their own yard. Another notion being that before they were afraid that drug addicts or any other criminals are right around their neighborhood to the feeling that crime has slim chance of happening in their own yard.

 

Second concern will be what if they did not arrest the right person? So what if they have the right person, does everyone really have equal footing to the justice. Most of the said killings were caused by alleged resistance on the people being arrested or too much non-resistance from those willingly submitted themselves to the law. Just for the purpose of figures, let me give the initial figures presented to the Philippine Senate about the killings related to drugs. From July 1 to August 15 of this year, there have been roughly 899 killed from those were arrested by the police and about 985 killed by vigilante forces. What about the vigilantes? There had been a long standing notion that though we should rely on law enforcement, no one can rely to them 100%. So as they say, the civilians therefore have the right to defend themselves in case of fear, which in the short American talk is your Second Amendment Right or as the president of the Philippines has put it: if you see a drug addict on your street and you don’t want to call the cops on them, you better start beating up that drug addict before they can beat you up! Here comes the parallel of the questions and sub-points I presented here: without proving the veracity of a suspicion there is a danger of things getting out of hand. There is a risk of a person being shot just because of the way they look and dress. There is a risk of false justification about the rationale of a person killed though reasons might be deeply personal.

 

The third concern is that the victims to these seemingly were the poor. Why do I imply that? Though it may not be totally true, it goes primarily their appearance. Why were the victims in Baton Rouge and Minnesota got shot? The prejudice had it that it is because of how they appear, how they dress, and what kind of vehicles they drove looked like. Why were the policemen in Dallas and Baton Rouge got shot? Because they dress like cops, look like cops, and they are cops! Why does these alleged drug addicts being killed on the streets of Philippines being shot? Because claims has it that resisted arrest or they simply look like they are using or selling illegal drugs. These killings happened on poor neighborhoods. They can’t afford bail, rehab, political connection, or media cover-up. Because the thinking was that the estimated number of addicts, users, and pushers around the country was larger than the capacity of all the prison cells around the country. While the ones who should pay greatly are enjoying the good life even though they are all in a maximum security prison.

My last concern about the recent violence is that those would demonize the law enforcement all the more. How? The people would see the police forces as either plain harsh, plain foolish, or plain slackers. Either way, all of the good law enforcement officers who try their best protect all of us by basically putting their very lives on the line everyday will be discredited and demoralized over probably a miniscule failure done by someone among their number. Will that be a fair reputation for them? Do they deserve that kind of reputation? The answer to both is a big fat NO! All of the police are trained to do what is morally right the same way as others were trained to do their job the right way. It is therefore the choice of that individual whether to do the right thing or be tempted to do the opposite.