As long as widespread poverty exists – hoodlums and gangsterism will be there. So given that scene – shall we just keep on going for quick fixes and keep on riding shotgun? Davao has been doing the tough-guy approach all these years – it might appear that it works better when compared to other cities. However, has it really worked for Davao in the sense that the killings eliminate crime – or has it whitewashed Davao’s incapacity to create a better climate for children?

So shall Davao keep on shooting whatever and whoever till kingdom come – is this the only solution that Davao is capable of?

Is this an admission that Davao is totally incapable of providing and developing an environment which proactively addresses gangsterism?

How about if those councilor put their pork barrel where their mouth is – more schools, more playground, more books, more teachers.

As the saying goes – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Has Davao lost its moral bearings?

While I believe that a tough stance against criminality is the call of the chief executive of Davao, there can be no debate that it IS definitely criminal to even remotely consider the murder of erring individuals, taxi drivers, even if they are thieves and worse, the killings of juvenile delinquents, victims of summary executions by the Davao Death Squad.

Summary executions do not have a place in any society. People who order summary executions, particularly of juvenile delinquents or street children should be brought before the International Criminal Tribunal to be judged for crimes against humanity. (Read Father Shay Cullen’s article in PREDA and reports by Carlos H. Conde.)

The barbarism with which Mayor Duterte (who looks like a criminal himself) wants to instill law and order in the city by openly endorsing killings, to my mind is already a violation of the basic human rights of his adult victims but that he should make it his rule of law to shoot juvenile delinquents, even taxi drivers who overcharge passengers with a shotgun is not only brutal but points to the mayor’s mental state – he is mentally deranged!

I wonder if this man happens to know that in this day and age, people, never mind if they have been elected the chief executive of their villages, their cities, their regions or their nations, can’t go about shooting people!

I don’t have to lecture Mayor Duterte about the various socio-political ways and means that he could adopt to bring about law and order in his city more humanely. Surely this man must possess a minimum of intellect, a minimum of decency, enough doze of charity in his heart to find the right balance. I don’t believe Mayor Duterte is so debilitated not to realize that The Davao Death Squad of which he is, I suspect, the de facto organizer and main cheerleader is not the answer to eliminating poverty which is one of the main root causes of juvenile delinquency.

Either he stops this insanity and finds ways and means to deal humanely with the erring and even criminal elements of his city or he should be brought to justice. Should that fail, the good and the remaining morally upright citizens of Davao must not hesitate to hang him from the highest lamppost! The souls of his murdered victims can then rest in peace.