The Philippine post-election landscape looks cratered. It has been only eight weeks since Rodrigo Duterte was inaugurated.
By one count, over 600 extrajudicial killings in the so-called drug war have come to light. Bodies are discovered with cardboard signs alleging their involvement in the trade. Dead men can't defend themselves. The police have presidential carte blanche and vigilantes abound.
This has been supplemented by a 'name and shame' campaign against more than 100 officials in various levels of government across the country. It breaches constitutional law which presumes innocence until proof of guilt, and it perverts equality before the law.
In this climate, it makes no difference whether you're a Duterte-voting driver from an impoverished neighbourhood, a young woman in her last year at university, or a shady mayor with a retinue of bodyguards. The bullets find you.
Such violent impunity is accentuated by Duterte's insistence on moving Ferdinand Marcos' remains from Ilocos Norte — where they had been kept as a condition of repatriation in 1993 from Hawaii — to Libingan ng mga Bayani. The Heroes' Cemetery. This is being undertaken on no more grounds than that the president had made a promise to his mate, the late dictator's son.
Duterte and his supporters may rail against crime, but there are other kinds of rot. There is burying truth; there is honouring a dishonourable man. There is using the full force of your office to reshape the country in your image.
Filipinos have been here before. It must be excruciating for survivors to witness. In response to a recent letter from the Supreme Court Chief Justice regarding due process, Duterte quipped, 'Would you rather I declare martial law?'
It's hard to make sense of how far the Philippines has managed to regress in such a short time. I used to be able to put things in context. Last May, I wrote here about trying to reconcile with president-elect Duterte, hoping that the hope of so many Filipinos cannot be wrong. I understood the regard for order and security as high priorities in a society where rules are taken as suggestions, plunderers get to run for office (again), and being a journalist can be fatal.
"If all that Duterte manages to deliver in the concrete are bodies on the street, then what a wicked and useless gamble Filipinos have made."
Yet I fret more than ever for friends and family. If life is so expendable, who can be safe? What