Punchline
‘Anti-poor’ syndrome
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
IF you’ve been up to speed with the current events, particularly the barrage of criticisms leveled at the Duterte administration for its adamant position to continue the war on drugs and the restoration of the death penalty, you will note that the much abused and trivialized phrase invoked by human rights and the church is “anti-poor.”
They who oppose the administration robotically whip up the ‘anti-poor’ charge when discussing mounting deaths and killings of suspected drug pushers in the war on drugs. They also insist that the proposed restoration of the death penalty is anti-poor.
Note how the plight of the poor among us has become so politicized and trivialized that even the poor have come to believe that they are entitled to commit crimes, violate ordinances because they are poor. How often have we heard arrested robbery suspects invoke their being poor and without the means to “buy medicines for sick parents,” or “to buy food for their hungry children” to justify their habitual stealing? Yet, how many times have you seen advocates of human rights and church leaders come to the rescue of the arrested ‘poor’ robber from jail, or seek to provide for the ‘sick parents’ and ‘hungry children’ of the arrested robbers and thieves?
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HYPOCRITICAL PRO-POOR STAND. We’ve seen the pro-poor champions gracing the launching of feeding programs and job training seminars for the ‘poor’ initiated by true civic-spirited organizations yet one wonders how much have these human rights and church leaders lent of themselves to the causes besides being there for the photo-ops?
They were always present in ‘pro-poor’ programs, taking center stage lambasting anything that smells, looks, walks like ‘anti-poor’ as if they have lived with the poor all their lives. But they were nowhere to be found when slum settlements were being demolished, or homes of poor communities were razed in conflagration. Has anyone heard them offer lands and houses for their poor?
Show me any well-dressed pro-poor advocate, accusing others of being ‘anti-poor’ in political discussions. and I’ll show you a true-blue hypocrite.
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POOR AS DRUG VICTIMS. The illegal drug problem was largely ignored by governments, the church and human rights advocates over the past decades because their powerful friends were raking it in, taking the little what the poor had for drugs.
Hundreds of families were being freely victimized in barangays by drug syndicates all these years, but there was nary a pipsqueak from the politicos, human rights groups and church leaders demanding protection for the victims, mostly faceless poor.
In fact, long before a Mayor Rodrigo Duterte accepted the challenge to lead the war on drugs, The PUNCH had tried to call the attention of the PNoy administration to look into the worsening drug problem, victimizing more of the poor, but to no avail. The response to our call was superficial. Sure, there were numerous photo-ops of ‘signing’ of manifestoes, of commitments, of undertaking, of support, etc. for the campaign against illegal drugs and they faded after the publicity that followed the events.
Then, I want to puke every time I see and hear loyalists of the PNoy administration harping ‘anti-poor’ charges to stop the war on drugs because I vividly recall how they tried to sweep the deaths of drug pushers and users, barangay officials under the rug, in their heydays by conveniently refusing to acknowledge these as extrajudicial killings. The mastermind behind it all was then DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima, now the self-proclaimed champion of the poor victims of ‘extrajudicial killings’, describing herself a martyr of sorts while her allies bandy streamers, shouting “Laban Leila”! How am I supposed to feel?
So if you are still wondering why I don’t support the cause of Sen. De Lima, now you know.
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PROTECTING THE POOR. The war on drugs is precisely a protection for the poor families among us. That many of the victims of violence were dirt poor should tell us how extensive the harm and damage that the drug syndicates had inflicted on poor families.
The drug syndicates prey primarily on poor families who will welcome promises of easy income by peddling drugs. They don’t bother much about recruiting the rich as pushers because their business is much better off with them as buyers of pricey quality drugs.
Then, note the profile of the drug personalities that surrendered since July 2106. Anyone who says half of them are rich is already brain-damaged by drugs. Check with your Barangay Anti-Drugs Advisory Council and they will tell you, that most drug personalities are mostly from the poor sector. They surrendered hoping they could be spared and helped.
The human rights groups and church leaders who truly feel for the poor in their communities, can help in the war on drugs by checking with the barangays who among the drug-affected families are in desperate need of help, so they can put their resources where their mouths are – for the poor.
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DEATH PENALTY. I have no quarrel with those who oppose death penalty but their arguments are based mainly on imagined fears of what might be, what could be.
The most common? What if an innocent man is sentenced to death, nothing can bring him back. I only have one question – how many of those sentenced to life sentence today have been falsely accused? Is it possible that the courts erred when the high value drug convicts were sentenced to life imprisonment? And how many of the drug convicts are known to be dirt poor? None.
How can the death penalty be anti-poor? It’s the retribution and justice sought by many poor victims who suffered in the hands of the rich, powerful criminals.
Our judicial system still works in spite of efforts to weaken it by bribing judges and prosecutors. But the process doesn’t end with the lower courts. There are still the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Surely, the justices can sense a false witness from a mile.
Yet, given what we have already learned about the high living of drug convicts serving life sentences inside our jails, and their capabilities to continue their drug trade hurting poor families while in detention, shouldn’t they be stopped completely with a death penalty?
Is it possible for a person who committed a heinous crime reform for the better if given the chance to be freed? First of all, the likelihood of being freed is practically nil if convicted of heinous crime. And when freed, there is the high risk that the convicted drug lord will still be up to committing the same crime thinking he can still get away with it with his old underground network.
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LOSING OUR MOTHERS. The PUNCH conveys its sincerest condolence to our columnist Virginia J. Pasalo whose frail mother passed away last Wednesday.
A few months ago, the mother of Jun V, Dante V and Mel V passed away too. My siblings and I lost our mother 12 years ago.
We are losing mothers of the baby-boomer generation fast.
There is always very little time to express our love and care for our aging and physically weak parents. The time is now, not tomorrow.
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