The Killing of Children

The President is having a very successful campaign against suspected drug dealers and drug users. The killing of a 17-year old Grade 11 student,  Kian Loyd De los Santos, by police in an anti-drug operation last week during which as many as 94 people were shot dead by police was just one too many. The police claim that all the dead, including the boy, resisted arrest and fought back. However, witnesses and CCTV footage of the incident show that the boy was dragged and shot dead.  

Whatever the truth of it is, the evidence that these 94 people were all drug dealers and had resisted arrest is woefully lacking. Many in the Philippines are shocked at the news that as many as 31 minors have been shot dead during the past twelve months of the President’s war-on-drugs. The tough-talking and feared President strengthened his determination to pursue the war-on-drugs and said that it would continue relentlessly and warned drug pushers that they will face “either jail or hell." "Illegal drugs are the root cause of much evil and so much suffering that weaken the social fabric and deters foreign investment from pouring in," he said.

Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David spoke out against it and condemned the killing of Kian Loyd De los Santos. "This is one very specific case where an innocent individual, who happens to be just a boy, a Grade 11 student, you snuff out the future of a child," David said in a phone interview with Rappler on Friday, August 18. "That really crushes my heart as bishop. I cannot possibly keep quiet about this," said David, the incoming vice president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). He is one of the most outspoken bishops against the extrajudicial killings (EJKs).

The targeting of children is not unusual. The authorities look down upon them. The move by the authorities to change the juvenile justice and welfare law and reduce the minimum age of criminal liability to nine years old is still pending in the congress. In a speech to the Boy Scouts, the President said children in conflict with the law have criminals minds.

Without evidence against the suspects, they are listed by local officials and are judged guilty and arrested, jailed or even executed. The President praised the big “success” of the operation. The rule of law and due process is ignored and for many Filipinos of conscience, it is extrajudicial killing. The police vigorously deny it. Some commentators say that as many as ten thousand suspects have died in the war on drugs killed by police and vigilantes. The vigilantes, some say, are police in disguise and they are paid a bonus for every killing. This cannot be confirmed. The owners of the funeral parlors where the bodies are brought pay the police to bring them more bodies, some reports say. The families of the victims have to borrow heavily to pay for the expensive funeral. A report by Reuters last June 29 revealed that some police bring the dead bodies to hospitals as part of a cover up.   

The amazing thing is that for a so-called Catholic country that is the Philippines, surveys say the tough talking president has approval ratings as high as 80 percent of those polled. Some say many Filipinos give approval in a survey out of fear. The President who apparently enjoys wide popularity said he would kill human rights advocates too to show them what human rights violations were. Later his communications officials said he didn’t mean it.

In the Archdiocese of Dagupan, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, outgoing head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, ordered that the church bells in his archdiocese be rung for 15 minutes every day for three months to protest the killings. This is needed, he said, to arouse the people who have become “cowards in expressing anger against evil.”

“The sounding of the bells is a call to stop approval of the killings,” Villegas said in a statement read last week in churches in his archdiocese in Pangasinan province. “The country is in chaos. The officer who kills is rewarded and the slain get the blame. The corpses could no longer defend themselves from accusations that they ‘fought back,’” he said.  “Why are we no longer horrified by the sound of the gun and blood flowing on the sidewalks? Why is nobody raging against drugs that were brought in from China?” Villegas asked, referring to a huge drugs shipment that managed to pass through Manila’s ports under the watch of customs officials appointed by Duterte.

And so it is that the voices of the outspoken, vocal bishops are being heard. In Caloocan City, Bishop David organized walk for peace. In the Archdiocese of Manila, Archbishop Cardinal Tagle issued a pastoral letter that did not condemn the killings but said “We knock on the consciences of those who kill even the helpless, especially those who cover their faces with bonnets, to stop wasting human lives.”

This is a time for people of conscience to know and speak the truth, to be prophetic, to proclaim the value of every life, to stand for the truth, justice, human dignity, due process and the rule of law so that all people will be protected and safe from home invasion and the arbitrary killing of innocent people.

When We Are Fully Human

The desire and longing to be a free and fully human is perhaps the deepest and strongest need of every person. It seems all creatures want freedom. Birds want freedom to fly from a cage, beasts to roam the land, monkeys to swing in the trees of the forest, fish to swim in the seas.   

Humans want to be free to walk the earth without chains, guards, and fear in the power and custody of others. Personal freedom to speak the truth to power and political freedom are among the most important of all human freedoms.

"What is it that makes us a human being?", I often ask the college students who come to study college-level psychology, social work, and other subjects in their practicum internship at the Preda Foundation.

They come from many countries in Europe, from Canada, Japan, the Philippines and USA.  I ask them to answer that basic question. “Tell me in a few words, the attributes of the human person that set us apart from the other animals and makes us uniquely human.” I ask that just to help us focus on whom and what we are. I am amazed as I am frequently met with embarrassed silence. What do you think makes us humans?

Well, the children at the Preda Home for Girls, ages 6 to 16 years, are pretty smart and they will raise their hands and speak up and they have true answers to the question. And that knowledge is what encourages and inspires them to be strong, resilient, brave, and courageous in facing up and dealing with the most horrific thing that could happen to them- child rape and acts of sexual abuse.

Society has always unrated children, denied them their rights and dignity and used, enslaved and physically and sexually abused them as if they were not human. Many people do not see children, especially those not their own, as having rights especially the poor, skinny, malnourished and sickly children of the streets, those in prison as equally human.  That’s why so many are left to go hungry, uneducated, and die of diseases before they reach ten years old.  

In the Philippines, the Secretary of Justice justified the killing of the youth on mere suspicion of wrong-doing because they were “not humanity,” he said. Therefore there could be no crime against humanity if they were summarily executed. I wonder if that argument would hold up in the International Criminal Court one day.

The amazing fact seems to be emerging of a Catholic country that has lost it Christianity.  Archbishop Socrates Villegas says many Filipino “Catholics” love the trappings and processions and outward devotions of Catholicism but he worries profoundly about what lies underneath the surface. They say they are Catholic but are they Christian is what the archbishop seems to ask.

In asking how Catholic they are, the outspoken Archbishop has said that they “declare faith, but agree that drug addicts should be shot… and many approve corruption in government.” (See the full report on the Sunday Examiner 30 April 2017 and www.preda.org) The outspoken bishops are attacked online by thousands of critics. “When we speak, they want us muted, when we oppose they want us maimed, when we stand for life they want us dead,” he said. Sad to say many bishops don’t know what it is to be fully human and as a result they fail to act for justice and truth and gospel values. 

Many have been silent so long they are now dumb. Fear is a powerful weapon. But the children, even when they are threatened even by death, they find the courage to speak out. When given the freedom, protection, and empowerment they need they can speak out for justice and truth especially when they are the victims of injustice, rape, and abuse.

The childhood of Anna Darling, 15, was taken away by a male pedophile known and approved to her mother and together they conspired to have Anna Darling made a sex slave with threats of killing her if she told anyone. The fear kept her silent. She had nowhere to run to. Yet, the pain became unbearable and eventually she found a woman she trusted that listened to her and believed her and Anna Darling told her story.

She was rescued and after months in therapy at the Preda home with 42 other abused children, she began to heal. Soon she was ready and bravely asked to be able to testify against her abusers. The case is now in court and justice, we hope, will be done and be seen to be done.

Anna Darling discovered and believed that she has human rights, profound dignity, equality before God, that she was a child and the most important in the Kingdom of God and had civil and legal rights. She was empowered and overcame her fear. She learned too that her humanity is based on having reason and the ability to think for herself, to have knowledge of right and wrong and to have free will to choose the right over the wrong. She also found that she has the unique human ability to communicate and speak out the truth and to love others.   

Anna Darling, 15, used all five attributes of humanity to get justice. What a girl! If we could all be more reasonable, be actively thinking, knowing, choosing right over wrong, good over bad, truth over falsehood, speaking out and loving our neighbor what a different world we would live in.

War-on-drugs: A Challenge to Catholic Faith

The Catholic Church - and that means not only the leadership but the People of God  who believe in Jesus of Nazareth and His teaching on the sacredness of life, mercy, compassion and understanding - are challenged in this day by the War-on-Drugs. God's people in the Church needs to take a stand with, and reach out to those in need of healing, care and help. Drug dependents are the victim attacked by bandits and was cared for by the Good Samaritan on the road to Jericho. 

 

The Philippine Church and everyone who considers him or herself a Catholic is challenged by  the commitment and fiery words of President Duterte to continue his war-on-drugs and remove as many suspects as possible.

 

Few can doubt the dedication and commitment to rid the Philippines of the drug menace. According to a United Nations report the Philippines has one of the highest uses of illegal drugs in Asia.   Philippine Dangerous Board estimated statistics there are 1.8 million drug dependents in the Philippines,

 

The true Christian believers in Jesus of Nazareth and His teaching of justice, mercy, repentance and forgiveness with penance must think about the moral issues of this campaign and its methods of killing the suspects without evidence or trial is a big challenge to the Catholic Church.  It is a call on the conscience and the integrity of the institutional leaders and The People of God everywhere and especially in Asia and the Philippines to take a stand on this.

 

Eighty percent of the population can be said to be Catholic and perhaps 60 percent know and believe in the commandment, "Thou shall not kill." They believe they must act and speak to protect life, practice love and mercy, to heal the wounded, have compassion, justice and forgiveness.  Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you is at he hear of the message. Jesus in Matthew 25 said we will be judged by the love and compassion we show to the hungry thirsty, naked, homeless and those we visit in jail. What we do to them we do to Jesus of Nazareth.

 

 In a July 2016 poll by Pulse Asia a stunning 91% Filipinos said that they trusted in the president.  The survey released on Wednesday, July 20 asked 1,200 Filipinos if they trusted in President Duterte and almost all answered yes.  It was less than half a percent that said they did not trust him while less than half a percent distrusted him, and 8% were undecided.

 

Catholics are committed by their faith to uphold life, life in the womb of the unborn, life of the poor and the hungry, life of the oppressed and downtrodden and to take a stand for them. So the teaching of Jesus challenges them and the church to question the methods used in the war –on-drugs.  

 

Those methods according to some commentators violate human rights and the dignity of the human person. Catholic faith if it is truly correct faith and not merely attending routinely Holy Mass, religious rites and rituals and singing hymns has to be seen flowing into action.  St.James has said in his New Testament letter ”Faith without good deeds is dead." Catholics are called by their faith to take a stand on the moral issue of justice and due process and the rights of the people to live and not be shot dead on the mere suspicion of a policeman who has sworn to protect the people not shoot them.  

 

Is it true that Catholic population is accepting it?That is until it turns on their children and their relatives and they will feel that there is no church or civil institution left to protect their rights.  

 

The Catholic Church has made a statement on the killing of suspects recently. The head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Archbishop Soc Villegas signed a statement that deplored the violence.

 

"Although death is a twin sister born with us on the same day we were born, death by terror and violence, death in the hands of our fellowmen is a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. With willful murder, we also grieve the sins of sexual perversion, oppression of the poor and the defrauding of laborers of their wages. Like murder, these sins cry to heaven for divine justice. We are not numb to these other offenses against human life".

 

Earlier, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, De La Salle Philippines President Brother Jose Mari Jimenez, Ateneo de Manila University President Father Jose Ramon Villarin, and the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines, among others, took turns in slamming the recent killings.

 

Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani appealed to the conscience of the authorities and other individuals to refrain from killing drug suspects. 

 

It is the silence of the People of God in the Philippines to act on their belief in the sanctity of human life, the rule of law, the principal of "innocent until proven guilty."

 

Taking a stand and speaking out for justice, for what is just and right, what is true and good is what Catholic faith is all about and that is the challenge to the Catholic communities everywhere.