Graces and awakenings

Last weekend, I went on a pilgrimage to seven Pampanga churches with the Our Lady of the Pentecost Parish.

We set out before dawn and arrived at St. James the Apostle in Betis sometime midmorning. At our homily at the mass to start the pilgrimage, our parish priest, Fr. Herbie Santos, talked about love and grace.

God is love, he said, echoing the readings, and we must be perfect like God.

To be perfect, as God is perfect, means to love as God does. He allows rain to fall on the just and the unjust, lets the sun rise on the good and the bad. He loves with no conditions.

Lest the word be misused, Father Herbie talked about the signs of true love: it had to change not only the one who is loved but also the one who loves. True love is grace.

And perhaps, by extension, to see if something is good, to see if something has been done out of love, we must search for the grace that accompanies that love.

It’s easy to get lost in spirituality, especially after a long week of emotions, of witnessing people crying the tears of those who have finally lost control over their image and narrative, of seeing justice coming to life.

It was a week of reading people’s opinions, from those who had actual law degrees and knew the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who weren’t self-appointed experts attempting an explanation to justify their opinions, who were sober as they spoke of justice and the rule of law.

On the other hand, there were disturbing opinions that ridiculed the relief many of us experienced.

There were those who tried to spin the arrest as a political move. There were those who filmed themselves sobbing because their so-called “best president the Philippines ever had” looked fragile, alone, humble. There were those who claimed that he had tried to protect the country and deserved better.

There was so much I wanted to say in response, as the opinions tried to stab through the legal explanations, the research-based commentaries, the solemn stories of those whose relatives had been killed in the bloody drug war.

Political move or not, Duterte enjoyed the freedom of his uncouth speeches. He called for death, praised the police for killing drug addicts, cussed the Pope, mocked the ICC.

There is no such thing as a harmless word. We columnists know that. We’ve been threatened for our work. We’ve been forced to be gentle and cautious for way too long. No one is immune from being persecuted for the results of their careless, heartless declarations—especially not someone holding the highest office in the land.

To those who cried: I hope you also shed tears for those who were unjustly killed in the so-called war that you believe protected you.

If you believe that collateral damage is what makes you feel safe, then you aren’t really safe. You’re just thinking that you’re better than those who fell prey to the weaknesses that people, often in the grip of poverty, fall to. You’re simply exercising your privilege. Self-righteous. Entitled.

Hurts to have one’s life reduced to a single word, doesn’t it? But isn’t that what you also do when you condense people’s identities to their criminal records?

Yes, Duterte looks sick, but he wasn’t kidnapped. He wasn’t led away defenseless. He had loyal family and allies assaulting police officers and social media feeds.

He wasn’t gunned down on the street, and then branded as someone who fought the police and tried to flee (nanlaban). He wasn’t covered in yards of duct tape and called an addict. He wasn’t killed for petty crimes while the corrupt drained the country’s coffers.

He was flown on a special jet to a detention cell bigger than many of the ramshackle houses his victims once suffered in. He was read his rights. He was informed of his charges.

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He had the chance that many of his victims never had. Whether or not they were guilty of being drug addicts is immaterial. They all had their own stories. They never got the chance to tell them. He gets to.

In front of a cold criminal court that doesn’t erupt into drama, before cameras that capture only procedures rather than theatrics, before a small audience of supporters that tries to undermine the proceedings through inane accusations and misogynistic comments. He gets to tell his story. Because that is what justice is. That is what due process is.

On that early morning in Pampanga, the homily reminded us that love comes with grace, and if something is good, there must be grace to accompany it.

To equate safety with the death of many, excellence with brutishness, greatness with a country divided—that’s not grace. That is evil.

And it is not something to be celebrated.

The words also reminded us that we must be like God—but we must NOT play God. We don’t get to talk about killing people, kicking them, or ordering them assassinated. We don’t get to define which lives are valuable and which lives can be taken away.

We should not take lives, order people to take them, or rejoice in death.

Because we will pay, one way or another.

We will pay.