THE Filipino people, as well as Christian churches, have to take a truthful examination of conscience when faced with the shocking truth that at least 30,000 Filipinos were summarily executed, and more of them were unfairly imprisoned without due process during Rodrigo Duterte's administration, when the rule of law was ignored. As a presidential candidate ahead of the 2016 elections, he declared that 'I will kill them all,' and people greeted this with wild cheering, giving full assent to a possible program on the extermination of drug suspects. Christian values were nowhere to be seen.

These days, the extent of that murderous campaign is coming to light. Some may dispute the figure of 30,000 drug suspects or more killed, but data from the presidential archives from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 27, 2017 — a period of only 17 months — showed that 20,322 drug suspects were killed.