The Human Rights Gambit

Let’s keep it simple this time. 

Discourse on human rights has about reached fever pitch when people began to notice an all-too-common occurrence during anti-drugs police operations: the suspect allegedly “grabbed” an officer’s firearm, forcing the remaining officers to open fire. 

It’s as if by force of speculative fiction people are expected to fall for the story. That, however, is hardly the case. The story had already done the rounds of television talk shows and columns for the past 30 or so years. It’s an open secret. 

As far as television crime drama is concerned, unless the criminal chooses “death by cop,” only then could something like this be justified. Hollywood, of course, offers a gambit: cops facing untold risks of being fired upon can always shoot the leg. Disabling the suspect is better than killing him.

Let’s get real. In a perilous situation that rolls as rapidly as flash flood, thinking of how must one officer should react is almost always blown quickly out the window. Training, I presume, kicks in at one point. But when life hangs in the balance, it is the sense of preservation that kicks in, not so much training. Pulling a gun on a cop hardly constitutes a life-saving scenario. In any country, that’s like signing your own death warrant, digging your own grave.

I recall the case of a suspected rapist years back who, for some odd reason, agreed to be a guest on national TV.  He appeared to have been invited by the network for an interview. He had been caught earlier and was now in police custody. He worked as a driver for a public utility vehicle—the FX shuttle—who victimized women commuters.

During the broadcast, the suspect boasted of his “conquests,” and regaled how the women “loved the way he did it”. The admission, I presumed, shocked the television world, and came as an amusing segment for the network. I watched as the suspected rapist took his sweet time reminiscing what had happened. It was a reality show gone bonkers.

After I had my fill of his conceit, I switched the TV off for an hour or two of reading. As my eyelids grew heavy with sleep, I remember thinking, “How could anyone in his right mind admit to something so gruesome?” That’s presuming, of course, he was in his right mind. Most sex offenders suffer a crack in the skull, so to speak. Rape is not about sex but about power, and we all know what they say about power: it corrupts absolutely.

The next day, a tabloid headline screamed bloody murder. The suspected rapist, on his way back to the precinct following the network interview, ended up dead. An alleged scuffle for the firearm of one of the officers led to his shooting. The police said they were given no other choice.

No one raised a clamor. Buzz about “salvaging” was rife on social media, but nothing by way of violent opposition was raised. 

In fact, the next day, a group of young women students, who regularly take the FX shuttle ride to school and work, paid the precinct a visit. They offered by way of thanksgiving some cake and flowers for the officers. The usual hugging and show of appreciation took the media world by storm. The trivial deliberations online went poof. It was a good day to be alive.

I read it and wondered how we have come to this place of total denial of a person’s rights to a trial. 

Don’t get me wrong, if it happened to any of my loved ones, shooting the suspect would be the least of the suspect’s fears. That’s too easy. I’d probably skin him alive after beating him with brass knuckles to an inch of his life, feed his filleted flesh to my cats and toss his gouged eyes and penis into the latrine. As for his brain, if he even had one, I’d probably use it as fertilizer to my bougainvillea. But I have to mince it first. Yes, I hate rapists with a vengeance.

Belonging to a family of lawyers and judges, having also known a number of good ones in my lifetime, I am aware of how the legal system can be turned against the victims. While rape provokes the deepest anger, especially to fathers and husbands like me, for the most part the courts view it as something trivial. A legal technicality, like the lack of evidence, can prove devastating to the victim and her family.

Worse, it is perceived by some as a case where the women should, in part, be blamed. It’s as if the alleged provocation—wearing of flimsy clothing, being out at night unchaperoned, or leaving a bar drunk as a cockatoo on steroids—is enough to twist the case around. In other cultures like the Middle East, a rape victim often finds herself in the painful end of a whip.

I recall reading a story of a three-year-old girl who, after being assaulted sexually, was placed inside a chicken coop where she was left for dead. One story particularly caused me to vomit: a group of drug-crazed teenagers opening a casket recently prepared for burial and raping the fresh carcass inside. 

The question now in everyone’s mind is: how does one reconcile the violence heaped on rape victims with human rights? Why must society even consider the suspect as worthy of his day in court? What about the rights of the victims? Have we become so calloused to the plight of others that in the comfort of our own safety we mindlessly fight for the rights of the accused more than that of the victims? Has society gone totally insane?

One dear lawyer I had a conversation with online posited that oftentimes, even with a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, there is no other choice but to declare the suspect guilty. How this can happen remains a mystery to me. The subtleties inherent in some incidents may prove hard to pinpoint, if not underscore.

The Duterte administration’s bloody blitzkrieg against illegal drugs has spawned a continuing discourse on the subtleties of law and legal technicalities. Online, the discussion proves fierce. Former friends have parted ways. It has further divided what in the beginning was a divided people, worse, a people largely ignorant of their rights. 

With the increasing spate of criminality, which in 2012 alone logged in a little over one million crimes based on Philippine National Police report, a bloody vendetta against drug lords, peddlers and users seems to be the only way to go. 

The campaign has placed Filipinos on the crossroads of a realization: the neglect of past governments had put us all in dire risk for our lives. It’s time for payback.

Many believe it’s a gamble we must be willing to face. After all, what good will human rights do if we’re all under the mercy of criminals, drug lords and rapists? We are best left under the service of a government campaign all geared to take our peace back. Our loved ones would be better off that way.

Is this the price one must pay for peace? Because in the final analysis, the possibility of innocents getting caught in the crossfire is greater now than ever. Criminals, armed and funded to the teeth, will likewise fight for their lives knowing they now stand as targets for execution. You know what they say about push comes to shove. What little space is left for criminals to protect their lives and interests: surely they will take it with all the money and muscle they can muster.

While we all debate on whether suspected felons should be given their right to due process, one thing is clear: the Filipino will never be the same again after this. We have been forced to cross the line of maturity—or stupidity, if such is the case here. 

We cannot surrender our rights to freedom and due process without reaping a world of pain and frustration. Simply said, in a dispensation given over to the whims of a few powerful individuals, rest assured we are all targets for execution. Forget your innocence, those little slivers of hope you pamper within your enclosed little spaces. For this government, we are all guilty until proven otherwise. Proof, once you’re dead, is an impossibility. Exclamation point. 

It’s just a matter of time before the blitzkrieg knocks on your door.  

And dying on a cold slab of road, with a cardboard saying you’re a drug addict, the impunity and violence government seems to love so much has come full circle. And there’s no one else to blame but us.