Some of you are lucky, but most of us have experienced growing up under strict parents that overreact to relatively minor offenses. If you didn’t get to have formative years where fear was in every bone and muscle of your body, well, you’re in luck now—we have a president who overreacts to a lot of things, especially if he doesn’t get his way. (Remember his little fight with the media?)
Lately, the president’s new go-to threat seems to be suggesting he declare martial law to shut people up and get what he wants, so we thought we’d come up with a very quick list of things that absolutely, positively don’t require martial law.
1. An illegal drug problem
We’re not kidding—they’re really thinking about it. The problem is unless most of the metro’s population has been taken over by the influence of shabu and turned into mindless rage zombies perpetrating all sorts of crime, the public safety actually isn’t in danger.
Yes, drugs are bad and have ruined a lot of people’s lives, but what threat of imminent danger is justifying this rage boner? It’s like setting fire to your house just because you have a small roach infestation. Most people understand this. If you can really, really bring them in, stop killing people.
2. Upholding the separation of powers in the government
So recently, the president rattled off a list of judges who are apparently allegedly connected with the illegal drug trade, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—the institution that is constitutionally mandated to oversee the entire judiciary branch, which Duterte is aware of considering he apparently passed the Bar—tells said judges to not come quietly unless the police come knocking with a warrant of arrest. The president clearly isn’t happy with this suggestion, so… he threatens to declare martial law. (This is on top of his old threats to shut down Congress.)
We get what he’s really trying to say; he’s playing the expectations vs. reality game and saying that there’s no way in hell we could realistically get warrants for all the offenders. But that is the law, isn’t it? And the law was made to protect against reckless accusations like these. And martial law really isn’t the answer—again, no one’s safety is in imminent danger.
3. People criticizing the government
There hasn’t been anything about this yet, but since he already once cockblocked the private media from covering him (and has since relented, but still) we’re just covering all our bases here.
Photo from the Philippine Daily Inquirer