The way she presented her ideas on democracy, democratic governance and society, and human rights were done in a simple, sensible and civil manner hoping maybe she could shed light and present the other (mostly overlooked) side of the coin and provoke a productive reaction.
Claiming it as her personal view, the article also had a tone challenging the manner how the local authorities handled the situation. No local media here, in my personal opinion, has ever written such a poignant article that "touched raw nerves."
Despite the seemingly enlightened discourse of her blog entry, it was totally antithetical to the opinion of the majority of the netizens especially those living in Davao city and who are 'ardent supporters and trancedly loyal' to the current mayor and those who idolize Duterte even if they live from afar.
When she gave permission for her blog entry to be uploaded on a Davao-based news website which has about 8,000 Facebook followers, the chaos began.
The netizens' reactions were anticipated. But it was not the scholarly, productive discussion thing that took place. What came in were the rave of maniacal, rabid and blood-thirsty tongue-lashing netizens ready to tear her to pieces.
Only a handful appreciated what she was talking about and commended how she bravely pointed to us the "more lawful" direction; and for showing that not all has yielded to that rising Culture of Impunity.
There was name calling: idiot, ignorant, non-sense, they even called her a whore.
Did she deserve all of that? Hell, no!
No one deserves to be chastised for speaking his or her mind out. She was talking of the commonly recognized but never understood, much more, practiced (esp. Davao city) concept of 'due process' which many of us might not fully comprehend due to our limited exposure and education. The concept of democracy and due process ,after all, cannot be appreciated in the streets. So ironic, I guess, since we won our democracy on the streets.
Her distaste for the people's rejoicing over the public execution of the "criminals" was perceived as support to criminals and their act. With it, they wished her ill.
She wrote, she bled.
But she deserved nothing of all that negative vibes and stress.
I believe she got better education than most of those who lambasted her. She was way above their league, so to speak. She is in the position to write what she wrote.
Given it was on the public domain like internet, and feedback is a component of democratic dynamism, she took the reactions with a grain of salt. (If it were me, I could have treated it with a load of sh*t.)
The article (a blog entry, not a news story just to be clear) was not at all offensive. It talked about the rule of law, of the justice system however frustrating the process maybe, of human rights, of being civil and being human. If only our minds are open and our eyes are not blinded by hypnotic following of whoever has influence on us.
Personally, I think the reactions were bordering somewhere between insane, comic and hopelessness. Some of them, only confirmed what she wrote, about how the scary culture of impunity has slowly crept in the consciousness of people. To give you an example, here's one:
".... Davaonos are different and our mentality of justice is different for a reason. We don't waste time in killing, yes KILLING criminals because the rest of the country is ineffective and completely incompetent in dealing with such matters...." - from K****** Marfori.Scary. Just Scary.
Now, a lesson or two can be learned from my friend's experience. But, I appreciate how calmly, civilly, bravely and intelligently she handled the situation she was in.
At the end of the day, what is important is we stood by the principles we believed in. We have chosen which side we favored, for not choosing between the "white or the black" is tantamount to being dead.
Well, life continues. A beautiful one is ahead of us.
