Presumptive justice

I wrote this column a year ago today. - Cong

“Dead men don’t tell tales.”

LAST week the Cagayan de Oro Press Club led the commemoration of the city’s 34th Press Freedom Week. This year, we bannered the theme: “Freedom of the press and the Duterte administration.”

On Friday, May 27, members of the club held a round-table-discussion entitled “Free pa ba kaha kita?” Club members discussed the safety and security prospects of mass media practitioners under President-elect Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

One member asked: Why worry? In fact, the Mayor has recently announced that his administration would welcome scrutiny from the fourth estate. The catch, of course, is that whatever he would declare and announce would have to be “interpreted” by Davao media. My editor-in-chief dealt with this crazy proposition in his column on Monday. I won’t get into it because Herbie has already discussed it clearly, albeit through dark humor.

However, I cannot help but be wary and worry when our President-elect has a penchant for taking shortcuts with the justice system of the Republic–extrajudicial killings.

Many times in the past, Duterte has openly admitted that he has killed some of the dregs of Davao City. Many of those tales have even become local urban legends.

Until now, he has neither denied nor admitted the existence of the vigilante urban militia, the Davao Death Squad, which neutralized suspected criminals and notorious offenders supposedly at his bidding. In fact, this feat was among the many reasons that catapulted him to the highest post in the republic.

One could argue that Duterte’s death squad only kills drug users, traffickers, and suspects of committing heinous crimes (e.g. rape, highway robbery, kidnapping). Like what a friend told me that we need worry with the mayor’s propensity for summary killings if you haven’t done anything criminal.

To me this is a dangerous prospect. Without due process, to be tried by a jury of your peers, a case of mistaken identity is highly probable. Besides, extrajudicial killings can always be used as a go-to option for law enforcers too lazy to investigate. Worse, it could also be used as a convenient way to “tie loose ends” of corrupt or maverick law enforcers–and now, vindictive barangay chairpersons.

This storyline is not new to us. This jingoistic way of eliminating the dregs of society didn’t work before. It will not work again, this time. This also presupposes that we have crooked judges in the region.

How many criminal masterminds of big organized syndicates operating in the Philippines have been “salvaged?” How many drug users, runners, and mid-level “made-men” have been summarily executed?

How many suspected criminals who also served as police assets have been arbitrarily executed for “knowing too much?” How many have been felled by a vigilantes’ bullets, only to realize the fatality wasn’t the one they were hunting for?

Remember, death is final.

Our justice system is far from perfect especially since it has often been prejudicial to the impoverished majority of the republic. However, the roles of the judge, jury, and executioner have been specifically compartmentalized to serve as the justice system’s check and balance.

Our Constitution guarantees the right of suspects to face their accusers in a court of law. The republic’s five pillars of criminal justice exist so no citizen would be penalized arbitrarily. More importantly, it guarantees the erring citizen the right to remould and to rejoin the community. How could an erring citizen do this when they are as dead as the President-elect’s sense of due process or the lack of it?

Due process exists neither to delay nor deny justice but to ensure it.

Earlier this month, an alleged drug lord in Bocaue, Bulacan was snatched after a hearing of his case. The next day, the 44-year old suspect was found dead in a ditch with a hastily made cardboard sign that says: “Drug pusher ako. Huwag akong tularan.” I remember reacting: We will never know if the suspect was indeed guilty beyond reasonable doubt, now, would we?

Here in the city, our barangay chairpersons are busy drawing up a list–as instructed by His Excellence–of “drug personalities.” No one knows the criteria of the list. I read a post of a local plagiarizing columnist making light of this travesty.

There’s nothing funny about the list of “drug personalities” drawn by the barangay chairpersons. These are the new version of “order of battle” lists. It won’t be funny when they start executing these people without due process. Ask a person who has been included in an order of battle if it is funny.

Whenever a suspected criminal is killed, without the benefit of due process, the victim of the crime supposedly committed by the suspect can only assume justice was served–presumptive justice, that is. Pfft.