notwocanoccupy

The times when I feel lazy about trudging my ass to Luneta tomorrow, I tell myself that if everyone just listened to their laziness and did nothing, then nothing would happen.

So despite my laziness, despite the fact that I don't have work tomorrow and am able to just bury myself in my sheets and stare at the ceiling, I will go to tomorrow's protest activity.

But what will that accomplish, you ask. The truth is, not much. For now. The President won't suddenly decide to be a decent human being and direct these killers, I mean policemen, to stop killing people. Mocha Uson, Sass Sasot, that (Not Critically) Thinking Pinoy Dude, Andanar, and the millions of people who continue to fall for shockingly false Facebook articles won't suddenly come to their senses because of tomorrow's protest.

And yet. By going to the protest, I want to send a message. To the world, to future Filipinos, to myself. That while all of this was going on, while the President gleefully began killing our poorest citizens (in the name of drugs, whether they were innocent or not), while millions (including, sadly, my own family, and maybe even you, reader) cheered on all these murders, a few of us didn't take it sitting down. A few of us, including me, spoke up.

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In my reading list this year, I have three books on genocidal governments and life under them. First was KL, a book on the history of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Second is We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, a book on the genocide of about 800,000 Tutsis (a tribe) in Rwanda. Third is The Morning They Came For Us, on the ongoing murder of Syrians by their own government.

In these books, I realized that most people have an almost innate faith in their governments. A faith that the State acts in the citizens' best interests. Even when the State is espousing murder, most citizens will cheer on. When the State has labeled a portion of its citizens as 'subhuman,' 'animals,' 'unworthy of life,' most people will nod their heads, as long as it's not them. In Rwanda, the government urged its Hutu citizens to kill Tutsis and most Hutus did just that. It didn't matter that some Tutsis were their neighbors, classmates, friends, even relatives. They picked up their machetes (the poorer Hutus did not have access to guns) and hacked their closest relations to death. They 'did their work as Rwandan citizens,' which is what their government told them to do.

In Nazi Germany, most citizens got swept up in the fervor of hatred for Jews. They acted as informants, pointing out hiding places, they participated in lootings of Jewish properties, and turned a blind eye to the fact that the government is hauling off Jews (and Slavs, the mentally ill, homosexuals, political opponents) to concentration camps. The citizens knew that concentration camps were not meant to "reform" or rehabilitate these people. They knew the government did this to kill these people. And they did nothing.

In our country, the seeds of this hate are starting to sprout. We have the President himself and our Justice Secretary portioning off a group of people, calling them 'animals,' and unworthy of life. I don't need to list down all the times the President has called on the police force to kill these people, whether or not it's true that these people are pushers or addicts. We are swimming in those speeches. It does not matter that we have laws in place to prosecute criminals.

The argument goes that it was not the President who killed these people but the police. Do you think the police would be emboldened to disregard a person's guilt or innocence without the President's speeches? Almost daily, the President calls for more blood. More killings in the name of the war on drugs.

For most of his supporters, these murders are permissible because of all the heinous crimes committed by drug addicts: rape of children, brutal murders, robberies. If you so much as denounce the killings on social media, the President's supporters will call you an addict or a pusher and wish you were dead too.

To be clear, these crimes are reprehensible, too. We should prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent of the law, too.

But that does not permit what the government is doing. It has no regard for innocence or guilt. And even worse, when it was the President's son who was accused, the President gave us the ultimate form of hypocrisy by invoking his son's right to be presumed innocent.

The government that wants to give our Commission on Human Rights a budget of 1,000 Php is asking us to respect the President's son's human rights. That's rich.

So the government has galvanized its supporters against an enemy: drug addicts and pushers. Anyone (except the President's relatives and friends like Peter Lim) who is even suspected of being one is killed.

The police have required barangays to give names of suspected people. They have forced streetchildren to point out who are addicts. Not surprisingly, even those who are clearly not addicts or pushers are put on the list simply for being against the government. And those on the list eventually end up dead.

And what is the majority of Filipinos doing? Like those in Nazi Germany, they are turning away. They are ignoring all of this. At least it's not me and my family. Or, it will never happen to me because we are not drug addicts. I bet that's what some of the families in the drug list thought, too. The government has succeeded in making us approve of these murders.

And with the likes of Mocha Uson making people hate on Dilawans and pitting Filipinos against each other, I wonder if the time will come when each of his supporters will pick up an axe and start killing their Dilawan friends and family.

In Rwanda at the time of the genocide, the races were so intermixed that the differences between Hutu and Tutsi were nearly imperceptible. Most of the time, it came to word of mouth. I heard you were from this tribe so I will kill you.

The line between Dilawan and DDS, where is it drawn? A tweet criticizing the government? A blog post like this? How close are we to actually killing each other? In the name of what? 'DRAHGS?' Colors?

A silver lining: In each of the conflicts I read about, there is always a minority. A minority that saw what was going on for what it is and spoke up. Or else did their part in alleviating its effects.

In Nazi Germany, political opponents, both exiled and jailed, wrote stinging treatises against the government. Ordinary citizens helped their Jewish compatriots hide or escape the country. Some wrote to newspapers abroad, helping to shed light on what the Third Reich was really planning, the murder of its citizens.

In Rwanda, stories of Hutus sheltering Tutsis in their homes; some Hutus refusing to take part in the nationwide massacre and being killed themselves for refusing; Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a hotel, helping to hide Tutsis and eventually help them escape.

In Syria, citizens risking their lives, with limited tools, to tend to the injured and dying in cities such as Homs and Aleppo; recording their experiences for transmission abroad, to shed light on the situation on the ground.

This is the kind of story I want to tell with my life: that when my government chose to lead a nationwide campaign of murder and deprivation of human rights, I did not get swept up. Instead, I looked into myself, my own moral code and my own sense of right and wrong and I objected.

I hope that these protests (and there will be more if the government continues to ruin the country and its citizens) tell that story. So future Filipinos will not shake their heads at us, thinking we all chose to take part in something so vile, so shameful. That there was a minority who objected.

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(UPDATE: In the time I wrote this, the President has changed his mind and now I have work again tomorrow. How nice, to be led by someone who can't be firm in his decisions)