Could It Really Have Been Any One of Us?
A Hard Pill to Swallow
Time and time again, Duterte has encouraged law enforcers to kill criminals who fight back. “Pag walang baril, bigyan mo ng baril,” he stated, directly giving cops the order to frame suspects of fighting back. Kian Delos Santos, a Grade 11 student who dreamed of becoming a policeman, fell victim to this very culture of police brutality encouraged by our president.
Duterte has stated that the poor being the primary victims drug-related police operations is to be expected, but I think it’s because it is a war on the poor rather than on drugs. He treats the poor as expendable members of society so if ever the authorities do kill someone innocent, it wouldn’t even matter. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be as easy to take the life of someone belonging to the privileged, upper classes.
In recent days I’ve heard the phrase, “He was only 17, it could have been any one of us” from the mouths of Pisay scholars I know to be a lot more privileged than Kian. Pisay may be a public school but the majority of its students belong to the middle or upper class. Yes, Kian was a student and you are the same, but if you’re not part of the lower class, underprivileged and marginalized, then you definitely would not have been in his position.
Kian was a member of the urban poor population, just like almost every other victim in extrajudicial killings excluding those involved in narco-politics. He did not live in luxury, he lived in a poor neighborhood. He even had to sell his own clothes just to buy fruits for a friend. You could say that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, yet he was killed in the very barangay he called home. So if you live in an exclusive village or an area with that amount of safety, where do you get the audacity to say it could have been you?
The police’s guidelines for the Tokhang is simply to knock on the doors of suspected users and pushers to stop their involvement with the illegal drug trade and to disseminate information among other residents. From past operations these guidelines were followed well enough when in the confines of gated and exclusive villages. Yet when in the slums, the suspects are faced with bullets.
Kian’s death was a class issue, that is simply the truth of it and we must accept it as it is so that we can make progress. However, it being a class issue does not invalidate his death as a unifying force because we are still part of the same society, his death should still be relevant to you. As a Filipino citizen and a scholar for the Filipino people, you do not have the right to stay quiet at an injustice done to your people.
Duterte may say he is waging a war on illegal-drugs, but that will not change what it truly is: a war against the poor. Privileged teens who use drugs and that are involved in narcotics have nothing to fear except administrative intervention. In Pisay, the consequence of illegal-drug use is a Level III Offense; in the slums, it’s death and condemnation.
Kian was falsely accused of having involvement with illegal drugs and was beaten. He pleaded for his life, but all he was given was a gun and the order to run, knowing he’d be shot dead. But perhaps none of this would have happened to him if he weren’t poor.
So check your privilege; it’s not just about your education or even your standard of living, it extends to whether it could have been you in Kian’s position. And when you do realize the privilege you have, use it to speak up against the injustices your countrymen and fellow students like Kian face. I mean, it’s not like your life is at risk.
