WHOM should the Catholic Church, rights groups, and other moral and religious authorities support— criminals, rebels, and terrorists; the police and soldiers battling them; or the victims of their depredations?
The answer, of course, is all of them. Every human being has rights and dignity, which should be respected, whichever side of the law he or she may be.
So, why are religious, rights, and law groups raising hell over alleged killings of suspect offenders, insurgents and extremists, but rarely raise placards, stage protests, or post angry statements for those killed or hurt by drug syndicates, crime gangs, terrorists and communists? Nor do these paragons of spirituality and morality get agitated for state forces defending peace and order.
About 4,000 suspects have died in anti-narcotics operations of the Philippine National Police (PNP), and thousands more may have been killed by vigilantes targeting drug users and pushers.
Catholic clergy, Christian groups, local and global rights advocates, opposition politicians, including Vice President Leni Robredo and Senator Leila de Lima, and other worthies have rightly denounced the deaths, and pressed for the investigation and punishment of the killers, especially those in uniform.
But how many of them have shown great mourning and outrage over the 8,000 or so murders, the 9,000 rapes, the 60,000 robberies, and the 200,000-plus assaults that happen every year?
Crime trebled in the Aquino years, from 324,083 incidents in 2009 to more than 1 million a year in 2013 and 2014, as the Philippine Statistics Authority reported.
Yet there were hardly any pastoral letters, processions and demonstrations, manifestos and blogs about the many thousands of Filipinos killed or raped, and the hundreds of thousands injured.
As for addiction, between 1 million and 4 million Filipino lives were enslaved, if not destroyed, by shabu, heroin and other illegal substances, fed by the tripling of contraband to more than $25 billion a year by 2014.
Yet only in the past year did the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines devote more than a paragraph or two denouncing narcotics. And that was in a CBCP statement mainly against drug-war killings.
That led many to think that if the Church weren’t excoriating police and vigilantes for the gunning down of drug pushers and users, it would not have condemned the illegal substances trade as much as it did.
Demon state vs angel rebels
The same disparity in advocacy divides how religious and rights groups stand up for insurgents and militants, but clench no fists for officials, police, soldiers and civilians assassinated by the New People’s Army, or the PNP and military detachments attacked, along with farm and industrial facilities razed by the NPA.
And when communist rebels were mounting attack after attack amid peace talks and ceasefires, and even during the Marawi conflict, no prelates, priests, nuns, or other holies called on the NPA to play fair and get serious with peace.
Now, President Rodrigo Duterte and our long-suffering Armed Forces have finally had it with peace talks after a year of communist attacks and violations, even if several leftist leaders were appointed to the Cabinet.
Yet who are some priests pressing on peace talks? Not the Communist Party of the Philippines, its NPA armed wing, and their National Democratic Front legal façade, whose violations and depredations scuttled negotiations.
Nope. These men of the cloth and other supposed advocates of peace call on President Duterte and the AFP to take more treachery and violence from the reds, and resume talks which the CPP-NPA-NDF use as a deceptive ruse to hold back the military while they attack and attack.
Turning to the Islamic State-driven terrorist groups, there are bizarrely pockets or even swathes of anti-government animosity, if not anger even in and around Marawi, so that IS-linked extremists are said to be recruiting fighters, reportedly offering as much as P100,000.
Why aren’t Muslim leaders, including ulama, not denouncing IS and its Maute, Abu Sayyaf, and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters cohorts? A couple of months ago, there was talk of the Ulama Council declaring a fatwa on terrorism, but nothing so far.
But with the move to extend martial law in Mindanao, President Duterte and the security forces are again the villains in the cross-hairs of religious, rights and democracy entities, with hardly a word of denunciation against terrorists, rebels and their foreign backers.
Thankfully, despite this thankless state of Christian, Muslim, and democrat perspectives on the threats facing the nation and its defenders, President Duterte, the AFP and the PNP continue to protect the people and battle the true demons, whatever condemnation the government may reap.
Last week, some Redemptorist priests at Baclaran Church posted the sign “STOP THE KILLINGS” above the head of the Crucified Christ, turning the holiest icon of Christianity into a protest message.
Why not STOP THE DRUGS or STOP TERRORISM? Fat chance.
Never mind. For tens of millions of Filipinos bloodied or intimidated by crime, drugs, insurgency and terrorism, far and away the real bearers of our nation’s crosses, it is the targets of religious and rights groups here and abroad—our law enforcers and our nation’s defenders, who are the true heroes upholding peace and order in our land.
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