REFLECTION: Justice for All!

(MindaNews / 18 March) – On 13 March 2025, I posted on my FB wall a very short article on “Conscience and Character” together with a photo of Rappler’s report on the collated statistics of the victims of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s (FPRRD’s) extra-judicial killing (EJK) until 2021. It garnered many negative comments and reactions from various EJK camps who eventually bashed me and those who shared it.

My cursory review of their comments and reactions reveals a particular line of thought that appeared about 20 times: that I am biased against FPRRD’s war on drugs when I posted only Rappler’s report on the EJK victims, which does not present the equally important figure of the victims of “drug addicts.”

As their narrative goes, the victims of “drug addicts” have been unduly neglected by the groups of human right advocates. Thus, to give justice to these neglected victims, they have embraced FPRRD’s war on drugs as it emerges as their viable option.

Concern for the Victims of Drug Users

I thank those who have sincerely reminded me to present also a statistical report on the victims by people who are under the influence of drugs during the term of FPRRD. In response, I have actually consulted some experts and surfed many internet sources including Google and AI (artificial intelligence). Sadly, these particular data are not yet available from these online sources.

As of now, what we can find in many online sources are mainly “drug-related killings,” which include “homicides where the victims have been alleged to have had history of drug use, accused of being a drug user or seller, listed on a drug watchlist, sued in a drug-related case, or found to be in possession of drugs or drug kits when they were killed.” In this definition, the category of killings perpetrated by persons under the influence of drugs is missing.

Presumably, the scope of the human rights’ concerns should categorically include the victims of drug users (substance use disorder). The unavailability of data at this time cannot be used as an excuse to ignore the valid questions of the EJK supporters.

However, it is a challenge for EJK supporters to do some research in order to answer their own question. Arguably, the burden of providing us with accurate data on the number of people victimized by those under the influence of drugs largely falls on the shoulder of EJK proponents. The public may understand better their sense of urgency if they could only show us accurate figure.

The Politics of Number

How many “drug addicts” were there in the Philippines when FPRRD started to wage his war on drugs? There were opposing estimates that emerged between 2015 and 2017.

Accordingly, in 2015, the Philippine Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) estimated a total of 1.8 million drug users.

Digong Duterte started his campaign in the presidential election in 2016. He claimed that there were as many as three to four million drug users in the Philippines. And many people uncritically subscribed to this exaggerated estimate.

In 2017, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) announced a new estimate of 4.7 million drug users.

During his term, FPRRD depicted the Philippines as a country with “deluge of drugs and drug-related crimes.” The abnormally escalating estimate of the number of drug users in the country has been used to justify his assertion that the drug crisis is a severe problem, and to eventually legitimize his war on drugs.

The new estimate that prompted FPRRD to wage a war on drugs has been criticized by many experts as “highly questionable.” It can be recalled that Dr. John Collins, director of the London School of Economics International Drug Policy Program, even called it “a slightly manufactured crisis” (see Inquirer 2017).

The Philosophical Concept of Justice

Cry for justice is in the mouth of both anti and pro EJK camps. It should be noted, however, that there are different concepts of justice.

From the Latin philosophical and legal perspective, justice has been commonly described as “the constant and perpetual will to give everyone that which is due to them.” This is similar to Thomas Aquinas’ philosophical definition of justice as “a habit whereby a person renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will.” Both definitions commonly point to what we call distributive justice.

Distributive justice focuses mainly on the perpetrators. It is considered injustice when a criminal who happens to be a drug user is not punished. The injustice that has been committed is punished according to the law of retaliation (ius talionis). We have a lot of this in FPRRD’s war on drugs. In the name of justice, many of those he considered unjust (the drug users) were summarily executed and, hence, not given the chance to become just again.

The Church’s Action for Justice

At all times, the Church should not only preach about justice but also act for it. This is what the Synod of Bishop said in 1971: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appears to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel.”

It has been clarified that the term “justice” in this synodal document is to be conceived not in its philosophical/legal sense but “in the biblical sense of God’s liberating action which demands a necessary human response.” This biblical concept of justice is “a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the gospel.” This means that without action for justice in the face of oppression there can be no true preaching of the Gospel.

Following the thought of St. Augustine, Pope Benedict XVI clarifies that “the human virtue of justice,” as well as “the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good, is something which concerns the church deeply,” but not constitutive of the Church’s mission.

Arguably, this Catholic social teaching on justice works only in normal situation such as when the State can be trusted in implementing the proper ordering of society. But in abnormal situations, when the State has become unjust and does not care for the moral and religious implications of its political programs, the Church must intervene in the name of justice.

Inclusive but Victim-Oriented Justice

In contrast to the philosophical/legal sense of justice that focuses on punishing the perpetrators of the unjust actions, the biblical concept of justice is essentially victim centered. This seeks to overcome the tendency of the distributive justice to be one-sided. It complements distributive justice by helping the victims of injustices, and by giving the perpetrators the chance to embrace hope. It also works for the authentic transformation of the unjust ways, to repair the damages of injustices so that the society may become just again.

Although the biblical justice prioritizes the victims of oppression and injustices, it is essentially inclusive in its scope. As the God of justice, the Old Testament extolled God as “the sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2). In the words of Jesus Christ, God is the Father who “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good” (Matt 5:45).

Justice for all the victims is the essence of biblical justice. Ideally, whether they are victims of EJK or victims of criminals under the influence of drugs, all are included in the Church’s action for justice.

It is our constant hope that God will “defend the lowly and fatherless; render justice to the afflicted and needy[;] rescue the lowly and poor; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. … arise [to] judge the earth” (Ps 82:3-4).

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto is the parish priest of Jesus Nazareno Parish in Libona, Bukidnon. He writes an ecology column in MindaNews, “Integral Ecology.”)