A senate public hearing was held in the
Philippines regarding the new president, Rodrigo Duterte, and his involvement
with extrajudicial killings. The senate heard testimony from a man who claims
to be involved in a “Death Squad” that killed around 1,000 criminals over the
past two decades under Mr. Duterte’s rule as mayor of Davao City. During
Duterte’s recent campaign for presidency he promised if elected to continue to
pursue his anti drug mission and “deploy the police and the military in an all-out assault
on criminal gangs”. Human rights groups are fearful that the killings are
eroding the Philippines rule of law and international leaders have also
expressed concern. The Philippines are an important ally to the United States
and President Obama has urged Duterte to observe the rule of law and human
rights. Duterte has responded to the criticism by going on the offensive and
calling Obama “a son of a whore” and said he would repeat the slur in person if
Obama tries to challenge him on the extrajudicial killings. Since Duterte took
office as president 1,506 suspected drug dealers have been killed and another
1,571 deaths are under investigation. Duterte denies any knowledge of said
“death squad” and is backed up by police whom say they have no evidence that it
ever existed. A similar senate hearing happened in 2009 and no charges were
brought to Duterte. His supporters saw Duterte’s victory in the presidential
campaign as a huge step towards making the Philippines a better place. It is
believed that his policies have made Davao one of the safest places in the
Philippines.
It
is crazy to me that the crime issue in the Philippines is so bad that people
are willing to turn a blind eye or even support these killings. Rather than
giving criminals a trial they are killed in secret to send a message to other
criminals that crimes are punishable by death. He won the election based on his
policies and stand on the war against drugs so it shows that people are okay
with this form of criminal justice.
It is so crazy what you can get away with when you have money and power! Just looking at those numbers and thinking about that many people dead in that short amount of time and no one getting punished for it!!?? Insane. It was interesting to hear your boyfriends point of view, him and his brothers actually being from there and how they feel about him becoming President.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about this a lot since it was discussed in class on Thursday. I can understand the point of view of the citizens, in that they feel safer without the drug dealers being around, but how can they feel safe when their leader is slaughtering thousands of people? How can they know if it will actually stop with supposed drug dealers?
ReplyDeleteI believe this is a huge human rights violation. The fact that they are killing people because they think they may be involved with drug dealers is terrifying. This is murder. Nobody is safe. This reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust. Killing people in order to make people "safe." How can we even be sure that the people he is killing are criminals? It could be the cousin of a drug dealer, but have no affiliation with drugs. Sometimes people do horrendous things in the name of good, but what separates from the "name of good" from the monster when tool being used is murder?
I had no idea about this until it was brought up in class last week. It is so mind boggling that this can happen. I understand wanting to make your nation a safer place, but I have a big problem with blindly murdering criminals. It reminds me of Arrow. While I am always rooting for The Arrow, if anything like that happened in real life, I'd be terrified. I have a lot of family in West Virginia where there is a massive drug problem. Through seeing it there, I understand the desperation of needing a solution, but there has to be another way.
ReplyDeleteI think the main thing that scared me was that if I lived there and was accused of selling drugs, how could you defend yourself? You don't have your time in court, you are just killed. That would be an awful way to live, like always in fear that something you are doing could be misconstrued and be related to drugs.
ReplyDelete