A Necessary Sacrifice

The recent photo essay published by TIME depicts grisly images of dead bodies strewn across the streets of Manila, giving us a closer look at President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war against drugs. The black and white pictures, taken by contract photographer James Nachtwey, show us a harrowing portrait of death - grim and unsparing. The apparent attempt to humanize the dead seems to make us forget who the real victims are, conveying the subliminal message that the corpses belong to innocent souls undeserving of such a callous end. Images of grieving relatives and spectators caught in suspended shock seem to underscore the campaign's unmitigated brutality, and we are compelled to sympathize and consider these deaths an unnecessary and tragic loss.

But is it truly? Before Rodrigo Duterte, heinous crimes such as rapes and murders were rampant. Precious innocent lives were senselessly destroyed and laid to waste by drug-crazed criminals acting with wanton impunity. Yet we never saw images of the dead victims or their grieving kin. All we had was a strange and curious silence. The government made no mention of these deaths. Worse, it condoned these crimes and mostly pretended as if they did not occur at all. The clergy was equally silent, playing blind as if ignorant and oblivious to its surroundings. Mainstream media paid no attention either, choosing instead to cover mundane and trivial eventualities and political circuses rather than expose the viral spread of the disease. Such was the debilitating and corrupting effect of narcopolitics prior to Duterte that our law enforcement and judicial system as well as our journalistic institutions were practically forced into complicity and rendered inutile.

Drug lords and street peddlers thrived unimpeded, unleashing their poison upon a helpless and vulnerable population. Years later, the contamination would reach catastrophic proportions, cogently infecting 4% of the country's total head count. Four out of every one hundred. Four million total.

If Duterte had not become president, the contagion would continue to grow at an exponential rate. After five or six years the figures would probably reach double, and would simply be ignored and treated as a statistic. Does this prospect not sound alarming?

This is what those who oppose Duterte's hardline tactics do not understand. Yes, these criminals are human beings and are thus entitled to what we call "human rights." But given the gravity of our circumstance, treating these hardened and unrepenting criminals with kid gloves will only bring us closer to the precipice. Drug addicts, save for a few rare exceptions, are generally beyond rehabilitation. They might refrain out of temporary fear, but will most likely slip back into the abyss once our guard is down. Drug lords and peddlers are equally biding their time, laying low while the heat is intense, only to return with a more vicious tenacity once the situation is perceived to be back to normal.

Pardon the comparison but drug peddlers and addicts may be likened to cockroaches who are likely to survive in the event of a nuclear explosion. They are extremely difficult to eliminate. They die hard and come back with a vengeance.

The drug problem is a social cancer, a seemingly incurable disease. Patience and human compassion, no matter how politically or morally correct, will not do the trick.

Fear of meeting the Almighty, while not making any guarantees, just might.

Such fear cannot be legislated or explicated. It can only be demonstrated.

I am not saying that criminals are not human or that they are completely devoid of any redeeming quality. I am merely saying that they were given a choice and THIS is the path they chose.

Duterte's methods may be considered by some as evil, but it is no doubt necessary. Given a choice between sacrificing four million to save the remaining ninety six, which option should we choose? The problem is zero-sum. One's gain is the loss of the other. You cannot have both. You can choose to be lenient with the four million but you run the risk of infecting the ninety six.

That's the way it works. Sadly, there can be no compromise.

So as much as I feel sympathetic and even shed a tear or two looking at the images shown by TIME, I feel much more for that which they chose not to show.

Four against ninety six.

Once you start looking at things from that perspective, it makes the hard and unforgiving necessity easier to swallow.

To see the TIME photo essay, click here.