Pubdate: Sat, 27 Aug 2016
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer (Philippines)
Copyright: 2016 Philippine Daily Inquirer
Contact:  http://www.inquirer.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1073

DANICA MAY, 5 YEARS OLD

MORE THAN 1,800 deaths so far, and counting. That's the number 
provided by Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa himself 
at the Senate inquiry into the surge of extrajudicial killings since 
July 1, when President Duterte took office with a vow to rid this 
country of drugs and crime by whatever means.

How many of these deaths involved minors? The government numbers do 
not indicate that information. And so the death of Danica May Garcia 
will eventually be lumped along with the rest-one more negligible 
statistic in the administration's brutal war against the drug menace 
that it has declared as the country's No. 1 problem today.

But there is nothing ordinary or negligible about the story of Danica 
May. Only five years old, the girl that her grandmother said was 
always excited to attend kindergarten at a nearby school was hit in 
the head by a stray bullet when her grandfather Maximo Garcia was 
shot by a gunman at the back of their house. The grandfather, a 
tricycle driver, survived with a wound in the stomach; the child died 
in hospital, becoming the youngest fatality so far in the ongoing bloodbath.

When is the death of a human being one too many? Is there even a just 
measure for it? Dela Rosa said 756 persons in the PNP list died 
because they resisted arrest. "Nanlaban." If they had not done so, he 
said, they would be alive today. "Buhay sila." And yet, in a recent 
viral video, a drug suspect already wounded and shouting surrender 
still ended up peppered with bullets by the Pasay City police.

And these are the adult ones, who, peremptorily declared suspects 
under lists drawn up in secret by police and barangay officials and, 
by that unproven accusation, without benefit of any formal 
investigation that would allow them to clear their name, may find 
themselves summarily killed. Take Danica May's grandfather, who had 
earlier presented himself to the police after learning that he was on 
a drug watch list. That act appears to have only exposed him further 
to harm, leading to the attempt on his life three days later. But his 
young apo got shot and bled to death in the process.

"Collateral damage," the defenders of this campaign would say-the 
banal wording meant to carve a comfortable distance from the 
unnerving wails of those mourning dead loved ones. Besides, the same 
defenders would say, it wasn't the administration that pulled the trigger.

This kind of response is appalling, and misses the point. Whatever 
one's position in this war, the current apparently state-sanctioned 
climate of impunity where people under mere suspicion of crime are 
killed without compunction is already a tragedy-a violation of the 
fundamental presumption of innocence enshrined in the Constitution. 
But the death of children-whether by unfortunate accident or as the 
targets themselves, as in the well-documented case of three brothers, 
all minors, summarily executed by the so-called Davao Death Squad 
years ago-brings the tragedy to another level.

President Duterte's war is now claiming many more unintended victims. 
Can it be because of the official endorsements of extrajudicial means 
emanating from, or abetted by, Malacanang? Earlier, the top cop 
himself has said he thinks the spiraling vigilante deaths are welcome 
because they mean that the drug syndicates are eliminating each 
other; now, he has taken to goading admitted addicts who have 
surrendered to police to commit arson on the houses of their alleged 
drug suppliers.

The apparent effect of these extraordinary exhortations is to open 
the environment to greater bloodshed and a wider field of combat-and 
with it, the possibility of many more civilians, including children, 
dying in the crossfire.

While Danica May's death made the headlines, no significant public 
outcry attended the news. Contrast that with the shock and outrage 
expressed by many Filipinos on social media over the video of a 
shell-shocked boy in Aleppo, covered in dust and blood, 
uncomprehending and rendered mute by the carnage around him. Children 
are indeed the most vulnerable victims of any war, but one need not 
look to Syria or other countries for confirmation of that distressing 
truth. The out-of-control violence in our streets is racking up the 
same victims; Danica May will not be the last of them.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom