FROM MUHAMMAD Ali
to David Bowie to Prince to Allan Rickman to Craig Sager and to, most recently,
George Michael and Carrie Fisher, 2016 has terribly become a year of deaths.
Closer to home,
President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s “war on drugs” have so far yielded 6,206
deaths—as per Rappler account. Of the total, 2,157 were killed in police
operations while 4,049 were killed vigilante-style.
But 2016 proved to
be not just a year for literal death; it displayed more so the death of
sensibilities, morality, common sense and empathy.
We cheer the deaths
of illegal drug trade suspects—both alleged users and pushers; while we also
gnaw at our fingernails hoping and praying that we and our loved ones are
spared from either being collateral damage or simply being suspected then
killed.
We nonchalantly
spew thoughts that those who died deserved their violent deaths; yet we feel
the chill of understanding that we—or our family members and friends—may be
next.
We continue to support
the “war on drugs”, at least based on nationwide surveys; yet at the same time
we express apprehension that anyone of us might fall prey to either police
bullets or to the impunity of vigilante killers.
Sadly, we have
become a country and a people of contradiction.
And in the
confusion, we have blurred the line between right and wrong; we no longer know
the difference between justified and overkill; and we have lost hope in our
country’s democratic processes that we have either passively and actively
surrendered to the law of violence, guns and deaths.
To top it off, we
have succumbed to machinations of the powers-that-be; fanatically believing
every words uttered; manically accepting what should be absurd
reasoning as gospel truth; and blindly following the lead of an egomaniacal mad
man whose sole intent is to accumulate power and be the center of everything.
And nothing much
else.
The deaths of those
icons would surely change the world as we know it.
And the deaths of
our fellow Filipinos in Mr. Duterte’s war may only hurt those who knew and
loved them.
But it is in this
instance that we should all understand that we are all slowly losing our
collective soul as a people and a nation.
And we are all
slowly succumbing to the rumor-mongering; to the hateful “if you’re not with us
you’re against us” mentality that is being espoused; and to the fanaticism
being preached by paid hacks who simply want us to believe without
reservation—and without real basis.
In the end, the
death of our collective consciousness and our comatose critical-thinking
ability will even be worse than physical death.
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