Girls from Preda Girls’ Home
Vulnerable Children of the Philippines
by Fr Shay Cullen
The deaths of two small Filipino children caught in the gunfire of vigilante assassins sent to kill suspected drug users and peddlers are an unfolding tragedy. The shoot-to-kill policy that has claimed as many as 2,500 [Editor’s note: as of 10 September it was 2,956 (and here)] people marked as suspects and killed in the past few months is a descent into hell.
Five-year old Danica Mae Garcia was shot dead when two men on a motorcycle stopped at the house of Maximo Garcia when he was having lunch with his wife Gemma and their two grandchildren in the village of Mayombo, Dagupan City. The men opened fire as Maximo Garcia jumped up and ran out the back. Danica, his granddaughter, was shot in the hail of bullets the assassins fired at Maximo. He was hit three times but survived and went into hiding. Danica died. Maximo had been called to the office of the barangay district official to confess he was a drug user and sign a paper. He said he had long stopped using drugs.
Althea Fhem Barbon, four-year-old girl from Guihulngan, Negros Oriental, died also in a hail of gunfire by police when they opened fire on her father Aldrick Barbon from behind while he was riding his motorcycle. Althea was sitting on the gas tank in front of him. The bullets passed through Aldrick’s body and hit the child. He died and so did Althea. He was listed as a suspect drug seller.
The shoot-to-kill is a policy that has divided the nation. There are those who want the police to uphold the constitutional rights of all and follow the rulebook of investigation and due process based on evidence. They want Universal Human Rights respected and the right to life upheld. They want the sanctity of their homes protected and safe from invasion without a detailed search warrant. They want their families protected from harm and violence and false charges and abuse of authority. They want a civilized society under the rule of law. They want their constitutional rights to be honored.
There are those who support a shoot-to-kill policy where no evidence of a crime is needed to mark a suspect for a hail of bullets. No warrant or proof of guilt or innocence needed. All those named as suspects are judged guilty by being on that list of suspects. The death list is a call to action by paid assassins, police and now under emergency powers, the military.
Local district officials and law enforcers draw up a death list based mostly on hearsay. It is like the age of the Inquisition. You will be called to confess your crime and sign a paper that is your death warrant and you must accept the punishment. No trial needed. Such a policy has left anyone and everybody vulnerable to be listed as a suspect and marked for death.
The door is open to those with a grudge or an evil purpose against their rivals, enemies or competitors to denounce them as drug pushers. Then vigilante killers will shoot them and leave a placard with the words, ‘I am a pusher’. There will be no questions asked, no investigation. Case closed before it is opened.
It is a policy that has put the power of hearsay and the dubious list of suspects in the place of hard evidence. It has bypassed the rule of law and entered the realm of lawlessness. The gun has replaced the courtroom and the balance of right and wrong. There is no need to listen to the pleas of innocence or recognize the truth. No more the plea of guilty or not guilty, no more the presentation of evidence and the rebuttal. There is no place for reasonable doubt. There is no need to pass a just judgment. The judgment has already been made once your name is listed. Sentence is passed with a nod and a promise of payment and the motorbike killers target their quarry. Such is the process of extrajudicial execution.
While the attention of government is apparently focused totally on the war on drugs, abuse crimes against children are increasing. The abduction of children by human traffickers who take them from their villages and pick them up on the streets and sell them to thriving and ever-increasing sex bars and brothels goes on right before the authorities.
This is not new. It is the cruel sex slavery that is common and ongoing in the Philippines for fifty years. The rights of the children and youth are being violated daily in a slow, spiritual death and at times by physical death as illegal drugs and the HIV-AIDS spread among the enslaved young sex workers. The new danger of the Zika virus being passed by sexual transmission is also present.
The sex industry is run on illegal drugs. ‘Shabu’ and other drugs are available in the sex industry, sex bars and brothels to elate the customers and keep the young girls docile and submissive. It is a business that is not a target of the war on illegal drugs. The girls are victims and can be rescued by the authorities, helped recover and testify against the operators and pushers. Justice will be done under the rule of law and not the rule of violence and the gun.