Too alarming!
I was
busy surfing the net when I noticed a news article that was posted on the ABS-CBN
News website last September 3, 2016. I was alarmed by the fact that a
four-year-old child named Althea Fhem Barbon — the youngest casualty of the
nationwide drug campaign — was accidentally killed during
a sting drug operation after
members of the Guihulngan City police targeted her father, a suspected drug
dealer.
It is quite disheartening to know that extrajudicial killings exist. I understand that President Rodrigo Duterte has his tough stand against crime and drugs to clean the streets by punishing those drug pushers, drug users, syndicates and want-to-be criminals. I also understand that there are many people who are counting on him in making our country a safer place for the future of our families.
I am not against
President Duterte’s stand against illegal
drugs and criminality, besides, he has a lot of
commendable ways in cracking down violence and criminality that I even support
such as conducting strict checkpoints all over the country, imposing curfew on
minors by 10 o’clock in the evening and karaoke night sessions by 9 o’clock in
the evening, and prohibiting the sale of alcoholic
beverages from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. and etc.
However, I
think there are better ways to curb illegal drugs and criminality here in our
country than the felonious killings that has no sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process. With
this, most of us ironically end up fearing for our lives instead of living in a
safer environment.
Reaped from the 10 Commandments of God, the fifth commandant states that
“Thou shall not kill.” An act of
killing or the word itself — kill, is not appropriate and a bad thing whether
the one who did it is in a higher position, has a mission order or has made it
by accident. Drug misuse is already punishable and killing, which is considered
as a solution, is also a punishable act. A mistake can never be corrected by
another mistake. As quoted by Ayn Rand, “The
end does not justify the means. No one’s right cannot be secured by the violation
of the rights of others.”
Moreover, rampant killings
in our society violates our human rights. As stated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article III, Bill Of Rights, Sec.1, “No person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the
laws.”
Do we
really need to entail extrajudicial methods? We all dream to have a safer and
better place to live in. We want all means of criminality in our country to be
suppressed. What had happened to the late innocent Althea Fhem Barbon, is an eye opener to all of us. Innocent people
are being affected. For sure, there has
to be other ways of cracking down illegal drugs and criminality in our society
with the sanction of any judicial proceeding
or legal process. Extrajudicial method is not
the best way to solve it. We need to do something about it especially if safety
in our family, surroundings and in ourselves is what we are really talking
about.
