In Brazil those who witness to the mercy and Love of God are also ex-drug addicts. They do evangelization and they are very effective and convincing since they have lived a life of conversion. Their lives speak more than their words like from preaching and homilies. They are very effective that the Bishops of Brazil created, already many years ago and established an Episcopal Commission for Drug Addicts. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in fact, when he visited Brazil came to their center called Fazenda de Speranza: Farms of Hope. There are a about twelve of them in Brazil and there is one in Masbate which I have always recommended. They are also planning to open a “farm” in Malaybalay, God willing. I have not yet confirmed that the one in Russia is already opened.

The facility to do extrajudicial killing of drug addicts in the Philippines does not only come from the order of the president to the police but also from happy trigger persons, perhaps looking for money to survive and resorts to become killers for hire. It could also come from drug lords to preserve huge amounts of money they kill those who block their way even to gain more money or any personal reason of love for money. Money seems to be a Demi-god that could dictate from the intimate recesses of man’s Heart to kill. However killings could come also from our own heart even if we don’t  pull any trigger. Murder is not only in the act of killing but it starts from an intention. For Christians, when Jesus said that one already commits murder in his heart when he considers his brother as good for nothing. When we discard persons from our hearts, in a sense, we already murder him, we kill him. He is good for nothing, he is a scum in society, a burden, a problem to society as per the stance of this present regime. This animalistic instinct of egoistic greed, vanity, hatred and lust for power are breeding grounds for killing. In order to exist and survive, politically, economically and ideologically,  the tendency is to eliminate the other, that is, not to be “neighbor” to the other, whatever color one has, political party, ideologies, etc. One needs to look into our hearts and listen if there is this exclusive egoistic love and tries to push outside from one’s life the other. Gossips, slander, calumies may not be enough. If I should exist and survive, the other should not exist. To the extreme, it could be expressed in these words: If I would like to be truly free, God should be out, he should not exist in my life since He limits my freedom, hinders my being free. I need to exclude Him. With this attitude, since God is absent, it would be easy to murder the neighbor from the heart in order to affirm oneself. If one has, for example, a very low esteem and does not realize on the immense love of God for him/her, one may be inclined to affirm his/her dignity by putting down the other. Culturally this was expressed as “talangka” mentality but on the extreme: it is to murder the neighbor from the heart. This sometimes is expressed physically and not only morally.  It could also be politically expressed through bloody killings which could even become systematic.  

Human beings, addict or non-addict, are images of God. Their lives, like ours, are inviolable from conception to natural death. True Christians could never agree in principle with abortion, abortifacients, contraception and euthanasia and finally killing even if it’s legal like abortion or death penalty in some countries.

We have heard this always spoken. Even beyond the Universal Declaration of human rights, this right to life is not given by the declaration itself but by Someone who basically transcends us. It comes from the Creator Himself. To respect life and defend it is not about attacking our president. It’s about attacking killing itself. In fact, it is the very role of any government to protect and defend the lives of its citizens. They could not be expendable for any purpose. Human life is an end in itself. I believe, this is necessary to have peace in any country. Peace could not be achieved without justice and justice is to give respect and dignity to every human life, whoever he/she is.  We need even more than before to pray for our government. 

That is why apathy and indifference has no space. I was struck but what Pope Francis’ meditation during the recent Day of Prayer in Assisi, last Sept. 20. Jesus said on the cross, “I thirst”. “In his “I thirst” we can hear the voice of the suffering, . . .The victims of war, which sullies people with hate . . . They are all brothers and sisters of the Crucified One, the little ones of his Kingdom, the wounded and parched members of his body. They thirst. But they are frequently given, like Jesus, the bitter vinegar of rejection. Who listens to them? Who bothers responding to them? Far too often they encounter the deafening silence of indifference, the selfishness of those annoyed at being pestered, the coldness of those who silence their cry for help with the same ease with which television channels are changed.”

Understandably, the Pope is thinking in a global sense, but locally, I think the local victims are also those families affected by this drug war. There seems to be a deafening silence of indifference. Human life and dignity is blatantly being violated with tacit approval. Oftentimes they are judged as guilty without the benefit of a doubt and due process. Death penalty which was abolised years ago in this country seems to be applied and practiced by law enforcers themselves outside the penitentiary walls.

The question is therefore not so much as to who are in power and authority, but the how it is being exercised. The human family has learned through centuries that we are connected to one another under one home called earth. If there is someone sick in the family, they are those who need precisely care and understanding. No one excludes and discards a member of a family who needs healing. Healing not killing! When healed, like in Brazil, drug addicts could be better human beings who could foment change for us all. They could be gifts for you and me. Others even think that we are no better than them. We need to examine ourselves, that in one way or another, we are and could be addicted to something.  They have sinned, yes, but who among us is not a sinner?

The nations of this earth today see the necessity and are becoming a famility of nations. They adhere to the universal declaration of human rights. Globalization, if directed well, could have good benefits for every nation. I opine then that political or economic exclusion in our national life may do more harm than good. We need one another as a whole. In as much as the world is not anymore divided by Western or Eastern Block. north or south, east or west; and what divides us are our hearts and mindsets, we are invited to change our hearts so that we could our nation one in achieving the truth, the noble and good, as our president hinted in his inaugural speech.  Change should be coming. 

St. Francis once cried out: “Love is not love!” We love and defend our own opinions, ideologies, mindsets. But few love love itself. We still fail to realize that if we listen to one another, we might be able to see that we could be gifts to one another not competitors.  Our differences are not obstacles but could be gifts to be shared without “murdering” one another.

Let me conclude this to help us remove  our own indiffence. Pope Francis advised the Christians in that same encounter of prayer in Asissi, “Before Christ Crucified, . .  Christians are called to contemplate the mystery of Love not loved and to pour out mercy upon the world. On the cross, the tree of life, evil was transformed into good; we too, as disciples of the Crucified One, are called to be “trees of life” that absorb the contamination of indifference and restore the pure air of love to the world. From the side of Christ on the Cross water flowed, that symbol of the Spirit who gives life (cf. Jn 19:34); so that from us, his faithful, compassion may flow forth for all who thirst today.”

Our country is thristing for peace. Killings are increasing as you read this blog.  Let us allow this Peace in our hearts to be offered to this piece of land, already soaked in blood, so that Love would be loved!  Then, everything would be in place to start this perilous journey towards true and lasting peace.