An updated version of this piece is published in the Inquirer.
Former Philippine president and self-professed killer Rodrigo Duterte spent six years treating due process like a pesky little fly, something to be swatted away whenever it got in the way of his so-called war on drugs. Human rights? Western nonsense. Fair trials? A waste of time. Evidence? Overrated. His brand of justice came fast, brutal, and final, delivered not in courtrooms but in dark alleys, outside shanties, and behind police stations, often with a cardboard sign that read “Pusher ako, huwag tularan” (“I'm a pusher, do not follow my example”) as the only explanation.
Now, as he is finally being made to answer for his actions before an actual court of law, the man who dismissed legal procedures as bureaucratic red tape suddenly wants his case handled with care. His family and supporters cry for fairness, due process, and the rule of law — terms that, until recently, were nothing more than punchlines in a bloody administration.
The irony is so thick you could pack it in a sachet and plant it as evidence.
Extrajudicial killings had their own kind of “process.”
Here’s a reminder for those who seem to have selective amnesia: under Duterte’s war on drugs, “justice” was served in a matter of seconds. A gunshot to the head. A body slumped on the pavement. No courtroom, no judge, no appeal. The only trial took place in the minds of police officers and vigilantes who decided, right then and there, who deserved to live and who deserved to die.
Thousands never
made it to a police station, let alone a courtroom. Those who were lucky enough
to be arrested often found themselves in overcrowded jails, waiting for trials
that would never come. Others were given a chance to “surrender,” only to end
up in body bags days later.
The dead never got a chance to appeal their sentence. Their families never got to plead for mercy. Their guilt was assumed, their execution immediate.
But now, as Duterte is being investigated for the very crimes he championed, his family and loyalists are suddenly quoting legal textbooks. Due process, they say. The right to a fair trial, they insist. Human rights, they cry — concepts that, for years, were treated as mere obstacles to “real justice,” the kind dispensed with bullets instead of gavels.
It’s almost poetic. The man who built his reputation on killing the accused without a fair trial now demands one for himself.
A fair trial is not a death sentence.
To be perfectly clear, Duterte is not being executed without trial. He is not being gunned down on a street corner. He is not being left in a ditch with a cardboard sign explaining his supposed crimes. He is being given a chance to argue his case. He will face an actual judge, not an armed officer who decides his fate in five seconds.
The worst thing
that could happen to him? A prison sentence. Not a bullet to the brain.
Compare that to the worst thing that happened to his victims.
And yet, amid all the serious implications of Duterte’s arrest for accusations of denying so many their right to live, his daughter made sure to highlight what was surely the greatest hardship of all: her father enduring an eight-hour flight to The Hague with nothing but a sandwich to eat. All while his EJK victims were never even given the chance to ask for a last meal, let alone complain about it.
Yes, while thousands of grieving families have been forced to endure lifetimes without their loved ones, one of the loudest grievances from his camp was about in-flight catering. A war on drugs that offered no mercy, yet here they are, lamenting a lack of meal options.
Where were these cries for justice when farmers were massacred in Negros? When Kian Delos Santos, a 17-year-old boy, begged for his life before being shot in the head? When Carl Arnaiz, a former UP student, was labeled a criminal, tortured, and executed? When Reina Mae Nasino was denied the right to grieve for her baby, River?
Where were the
legal experts then? Where was the outrage when the justice system was tossed
aside in favor of state-sanctioned violence?
Duterte is finally getting what he’s due.
Rodrigo Duterte once said, “If you destroy my country, I will kill you.”
He did not say, “I will give you a fair trial.” He did not promise a chance to explain one’s side, to prove innocence, to seek due process.
Now, he is being investigated — not executed, not disappeared in the night, not murdered without warning. Investigated. And somehow, this is what his supporters find unjust.
So, to those shedding tears over his arrest, calling it unjust, relax. Your beloved leader is in no real danger. He is simply being held to the same standard he once scoffed at.
For the first
time in his life, Rodrigo Duterte is facing due process. And unlike his
victims, he’ll live to see the verdict. — WALPHS.com