A person is a reflection of their culture, of what they believe and how they live their lives. A bridge between the past and the future, between time and space and needs to try to keep them in harmony, less they become unbalanced. Not to be aware of the past and give it due consideration in the building of the future can distort the future. Neither is it wise to sacrifice your future because you choose to live in or as if you are in the past. One World One Human Race One Destiny (OWOHROD)
Tuesday, 18 October 2016
PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE OF THE PHILIPPINES - GREAT REFORMER OR PSYCHOTIC BUTCHER OF HIS PEOPLE? P.2
This, it seems, is President Duterte's version of the shadowy and secretive right-wing paramilitary forces operating in, or which used to operate in countries such as Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Ethiopia, under the former leader, Mengistu.
Yes, President Duterte has began a reign of terror, in his forlorn attempt to wipe out the illegal drug problem in the Philippines. And, just as how he could not give a damn about the diplomatic fallout or collateral damage his blood-thirsty program is inflicting on his country, neither does he care about the damage it is inflicting on Philippians caught up in it. Thus we see President Rodrigo Duterte, in the media, telling us how, if his police officers kill thousands of innocent Philippians in confronting one armed drug offender, he would not hold the officer responsible.
What kind of man, nevertheless, President of country, would so glibly be willing to sacrifice the lives of so many innocent people, as a price worth paying to kill a drug offender? Yes, it would be a person who is providing strong evidence that their are suffering from some kind of pernicious psychosis, or 'Damian-like' evil. This kind of logic, if we could call it that, which President Rodrigo Duterte is displaying, is that kind which leads to the killing of innocent people, on the premis that the 'guilty amongst them', will also most probably die as well. Yes, it is nazis' logic.
It is the kind of tactics and strategies which the Americans used in the Vietnam War, and which has become a common practice in all kinds of warfare. Except that we would not expect President Duterte to be waging a murderous war on his people, in a futile and misconceived effort to rid the Philippines of the illegal drug industry.
The fact is that, even if the President, as he seems committed to doing, murders and maims tens or hundreds of thousands of Philippians, he will not succeed in rooting out the drug problem. Because, a government should not be resorting to murdering its citizens, whether they are believed to be guilty or innocent of the offences they are being accused of. It is the responsibility of the nation's courts to determine guilty; not the President's. Secondly, For the Philippines to be effective in fighting the drug problem, the government has to adopt a pragmatic, balanced and coordinated approach. It has to study the causes and nature of the drug problem; the personal, social, economic and political causes, and formulate appropriate plans and programmes to address them.
Deterrence, retribution and prevention,reforming and incentivisation are all aspects of justice. When governments are going to take their cues from gangs whose first and last resort is to murder those they consider as their enemies, and emulate them, then that government is on par with the drugs gangs.
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