It is quite evident by now that the notion that “extrajudicial killing” is “bad” doesn’t sell very well to the ordinary Filipino. This is, after all, a people renowned for their overall extrajudicial way of life. To bring the point across more pointedly, doing things above, below, beyond, and around the framework of the law is baked into the very DNA of the Filipino people.
And so the mystery is solved. Despite every bleeding-heart hipster and her dog crying Bloody Murder! over the mounting body count of alleged “drug personalities” filling the pages of news sites all over the world, few ordinary Filipinos are moved. In the mad rush of their own ordinary day-to-day lives, Filipinos take extrajudicial measures to get from A to B and from nine to five. They cross streets anywhere anytime, pick up and drop off passengers anytime anywhere, throw their rubbish anywhere anytime, talk loudly anytime anywhere, sing karaoke full blast anywhere anytime, and urinate anytime anywhere. They do all that with utter impunity.
So, to ordinary Filipinos who fear for their lives going to and from work everyday, hearing about armed people cutting through the red tape and paperwork to put a bullet — or ten — through the head of a “drug personality” is just another day at the office. It’s just another means to get from A to B — A being the target and B being that target taken off the street and being one less menace to society.
Does it bother Filipinos that a friend, son, daughter, spouse, parent, or they themselves may be the next “victim” of this expeditious “system”?
I doubt if there is much thinking that far ahead going on, at the moment in the Philippines. By all accounts, seeing the way things generally are in the Philippines, it seems there hasn’t been much of that sort of thinking going onfor a long time to begin with.
Think of it this way: If the bus you are on suddenly swerved right then stopped across three lanes in EDSA so you could get off at Guadalupe, would it bother you that this routine practice causes traffic to be backed up all the way to Alabang every night. Not the average Filipino commuter. Indeed, despite this practice long being an obvious problem that begs an obvious solution to Filipinos who observe and study this dysfunctional system from their ivory towers in Loyola Heights, there has hardly ever been any serious effort mounted to address it at a systemic level.
And so, here is a simple lesson to all you bleeding heart hipsters out there…
When you are an ordinary Filipino whose confidence in her “educated” compatriots’ ability or will to do things towards the best of the interests of the broader society had been utterly crushed by three decades of empty promises and no-results rhetoric, guess what: you’d go out and vote for people like Rodrigo Duterte.
There’s no mystery there. It’s called democracy.
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/blog/2016/10/filipinos-overall-extrajudicial-way-life-reason-duterte-remains-popular/
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