Compassion, not death

RAMIREZ

I literally grew up and spent most of my youth in the city’s red light district in Barangay Kamagayan where, during my adolescence days, not only bawdy houses and bars were situated but also makeshift drug dens.

I have been a witness to how drug users plummet to extinction and how few of them recovered and bounced back to being useful to society.

Most parakyanos of the drug dens and drug dealers started in their teens where a naïve invitation to cut class to unwind ended up in a drinking binge in a crude bar in the interior portion of the barangay away from the prying eyes of school authorities. Neophyte drug users usually start with curiosity and the pressure to show allegiance to his group.

I could not stereotype from which kind of family the victims of drug addiction come from because they are a mix of the children of the rich, middle class and poor families.

The menace of drug addiction could not also be totally blamed on parents who are too busy with their work and business or to an absentee parent working abroad because there are also several of them who come and dropped by the barangay just to prevent their drug user child from frequenting the place.

Drug addiction is a problem that knows no bounds because it affects everyone. Nonetheless, it is not a hopeless predicament but rather a temporary setback on the part of the person who has been a victim of illegal drug abuse.

Although we could not hide the fact that many died due to illegal drug abuse, we could also not deny that there are countless who survived and are now functionally reintegrated to the society after overcoming their problem in substance abuse.

The causes of the problem of drug addiction are as myriad as the stars in the sky at night and no single template can fit all even if it is coming from a president who has been voted upon by more than 16 million Filipinos.

One could not simply kick the bad habit of drug use out of fear that they would get killed by members of the police raiding team because, in the mind of a drug user, the absence of the addictive substance is as fatal as the gun-wielding government agents and the mysterious vigilantes.

It is the same thoughts that lurk in the minds of those who are into the business of illegal drugs: the warning of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to exterminate all of them is as fatal as letting go of the business that afforded them with luxuries in life.

The war on drugs should not all be “political will” coupled with the audacity to slaughter through extrajudicial methods those who refused because once the killing starts, it could not be contained to only those who are involved in the drug trading.

According to the Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle in his pastoral letter following the killing of 17-year-old grade 11 student Kian Loyd delos Santos in the hands of authorities, “the illegal drug problem should not be reduced to a political or criminal issue.”

The illegal drug problem surely could not be solved by killing alone because something objectionable is not effective in eradicating equally questionable behavior.

The killing of suspected drug dealers and users could not address the problem of drug menace because it will only fuel another form of hatred that, if not addressed with the right solution, could become a potent formula for the annihilation of our generation since hatred could never result in affection.

For those who are walking in the corridors of power, please whisper to the President to consider the stories of those families who has a member killed by the drug war, those who continue to struggle with a family member still into substance abuse, and drug addicts who recovered to give faces to the different phases of the drug problem.