EDITORIAL - Crime, retribution and where society stands

The threat to kill criminals, first made by incoming president Rodrigo Duterte, and then by incoming Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña, has elicited both outright condemnation and guarded reservation. What is common in either is that both reactions seem to represent only minority voices. Where they come from can be counted only with the fingers.

But it cannot be that the majority choose to be silent fence-sitters, especially on such a controversial and provocative issue such as this, and especially in a country such as the Philippines, where even the drop of a pin can stir almost interminable debates. That almost nothing has been heard from the majority can perhaps be interpreted as acquiescence.

Too many crimes, some involving senseless violence, cry out for real, and sometimes desperate, solutions. But is killing the criminals one of them? When only the usual objectors jump up in protest and a strange quiet seems to descend upon the land, it is almost a safe bet that acquiescence has something to do with the silence.

And it is not so hard to see why that may be so. When a holdupper kills a young girl just days away from her nursing course graduation for no other reason than to snatch away her cheap cellphone, one can seethe in anger, one can almost cry bloody murder. But such thoughts are not to be spoken out loud in polite and orderly societies.

And so people just keep their murderous thoughts to themselves and not blurt them out – not even when people like Duterte and Osmeña threaten murderous retaliation. But if it is any consolation to these two officials, they are in all likelihood not alone. They probably have millions of silent collaborators who just do not want to make a public stand.

But that is understandable. Personal situations often impose powerful restrictions on the conduct of people. There are people who just cannot be seen in public as being on the same boat with Duterte and Osmeña on this issue but would want to get to the same destination on their own and by their own means. In the end, the only question left to ask is whether everything makes sense – from the crime committed to the kind of justice available at the moment.

In the end, society will look away from this, or at least pretend to. Because the longer society dwells on it, the clearer it becomes that we are all to blame for everything in one way or another. Things happen that society abhors that lead to other things happening that society abhors even more. And then the usual objectors object, as if they do not bear the greater blame for everything.