The Real Issue in Extrajudicial Killings
Extra could be a word most people enjoy. But when it is linked to a word which would mean outside the judicial proceedings, opinions fall into oppositions.
Extrajudicial killings have been a sensitive but sizzling topic in the Philippines, especially when President Rodrigo Duterte progressed on with his war on drugs. Violations against human rights or crimes against humanity are the major argument that can be read when extrajudicial killing is discussed in many publications. And who would forget the story of Michael Siaron, whose wife has captured the sympathy of many raising the public's expression of appeal to the President's approval of extrajudicial killings in the country?
With over 300 drug-related killings recorded it can be said that it is becoming more and more brutal and ruthless. Antonio La Viña, former dean of Ateneo School of Government, is partly right when he told Rappler that war on drugs (executed by extrajudicial killings) is also a war on poverty, a war on powerlessness. But to my concern, the real core of the problem was left aside unaddressed and overlooked.
All these social issues are truly alarming, but the societal problems we have long been dealing with are just a by-product of one major sin – displacing God and His rule in our system.
Many have been complaining that the government's system in this country lacks in so many things, not realizing that the world we live in is composed of systems cultured and refined without God. Would you still expect justice, impartiality, order and even peace? With a system of Godless orientation, all we could expect from our politics, economics, philosophy, music and other areas of this world are hostility, corruption, selfishness in its aims, demoralizing in its influence, the domination of carnal ambition, pride, greed and evil desires, and lastly emptiness.
It is not all because of our government's failure to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with the due process of law that we should be blaming the consequences of these killings on. It is the sin that is our major problem. It is a heart issue that must be addressed for it has become our nature to lust after sin as a result of casting out God in our systems. Resisting God, we claimed a self-acquired authority to establish our own law that liberalizes us to take vengeance that is only for God, making ourselves a vehicle for fighting, quarreling and chaos. This very sin is what brought us poverty and extrajudicial killings.
If a system with no reference to God is the reason for having all these societal problems, then, turning back to Him is the only solution to end all these. In the first place, God intended the world to be beautiful. Even before the turmoil in having extrajudicial killings arises God has already prepared a solution to it. The Book of Romans gives us a whole picture of His deliverance from the wages of sins to those who would turn back to Him and begin a new life of righteousness, of godliness. God is offering this new life as a gift, but only a few are accepting it.
For this reason, I say, a war on drugs is a war without a victory if sin continues to abound. It is a call to all Filipinos, big or small, to have a true heart for God if we desire for justice, peace and order in our beloved Philippines.
Reference: ENW Unit 9
Extrajudicial killings have been a sensitive but sizzling topic in the Philippines, especially when President Rodrigo Duterte progressed on with his war on drugs. Violations against human rights or crimes against humanity are the major argument that can be read when extrajudicial killing is discussed in many publications. And who would forget the story of Michael Siaron, whose wife has captured the sympathy of many raising the public's expression of appeal to the President's approval of extrajudicial killings in the country?
With over 300 drug-related killings recorded it can be said that it is becoming more and more brutal and ruthless. Antonio La Viña, former dean of Ateneo School of Government, is partly right when he told Rappler that war on drugs (executed by extrajudicial killings) is also a war on poverty, a war on powerlessness. But to my concern, the real core of the problem was left aside unaddressed and overlooked.
All these social issues are truly alarming, but the societal problems we have long been dealing with are just a by-product of one major sin – displacing God and His rule in our system.
Many have been complaining that the government's system in this country lacks in so many things, not realizing that the world we live in is composed of systems cultured and refined without God. Would you still expect justice, impartiality, order and even peace? With a system of Godless orientation, all we could expect from our politics, economics, philosophy, music and other areas of this world are hostility, corruption, selfishness in its aims, demoralizing in its influence, the domination of carnal ambition, pride, greed and evil desires, and lastly emptiness.
It is not all because of our government's failure to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with the due process of law that we should be blaming the consequences of these killings on. It is the sin that is our major problem. It is a heart issue that must be addressed for it has become our nature to lust after sin as a result of casting out God in our systems. Resisting God, we claimed a self-acquired authority to establish our own law that liberalizes us to take vengeance that is only for God, making ourselves a vehicle for fighting, quarreling and chaos. This very sin is what brought us poverty and extrajudicial killings.
If a system with no reference to God is the reason for having all these societal problems, then, turning back to Him is the only solution to end all these. In the first place, God intended the world to be beautiful. Even before the turmoil in having extrajudicial killings arises God has already prepared a solution to it. The Book of Romans gives us a whole picture of His deliverance from the wages of sins to those who would turn back to Him and begin a new life of righteousness, of godliness. God is offering this new life as a gift, but only a few are accepting it.
For this reason, I say, a war on drugs is a war without a victory if sin continues to abound. It is a call to all Filipinos, big or small, to have a true heart for God if we desire for justice, peace and order in our beloved Philippines.
Reference: ENW Unit 9
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
ReplyDeleteProverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
James 1:14-15 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.