Feast of the Holy Cross: Christ being crucified daily in the Philippine 'war against drugs'

Christ in Agony on the Cross, El Greco, 1600s

Art Museum, Cincinnati [Web Gallery of Art]

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17, NABRE).

From today’s Gospel for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Crime against humanity? In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you: are they (drug addicts) humans? What is your definition of a human being? (The President of the Philippines, 26 August 2016).

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (Jesus Christ, John 3:17).

Killings in the 'war against drugs' since 1 July 2016

The President was sworn in on 30 June. 

(UPDATED) As of the 2nd week of September 2016, there have been over 3,500 deaths, both from legitimate police operations and extrajudicial or unexplained killings.

Here are the latest numbers based on data from the Philippine National Police (PNP).

3,526 total number of persons killed in #WarOnDrugs since July 1

1,491 drug personalities killed in police operations, as of September 13

2,035 victims of extrajudicial or vigilante killings, as of September 14

Data below is as of August 22.

10 police personnel killed during operations

18 police personnel wounded during police operations.

'This campaign (of) shoot-to-kill will remain until the last day of my term if I'm still alive by then,' the 71-year-old (President) said, adding: 'I don't care about human rights, believe me.' He also announced that he was offering his soldiers and police personnel 'official and personal guarantee' of immunity from these prosecutions. In his crack down on drug peddlers, the president has even authorised citizens to shoot culprits to punish them for their crime. (The President of the Philippines, 6 August 2016).

A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly (Jesus Christ, John 10:10).

Pietá, Our Lady of Remedies Church, Malate, Manila

This commemorates the 100,000 or so, mostly civilians and including five Columban priests, who died in the Battle of Manila, February 1945.

San Roque, intercede for the poor and despised 'suspects' of the Philippines!

San Roque's tomb, Venice [Wikipedia]

Today, 16 August, is the feast of San Roque in the Philippines where there is great devotion to him. He was a French layman born around 1348 and who died 16/17 August 1376/79. (Some date his life from c.1295 – 16 August 1327). He is invoked against the plague. He is known in France as St Roch, in Italy as San Rocco and in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines as San Roque. He is no so well known in the English-speaking world and in English is referred to as St Rock.

According to Wikipedia: Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them. Count Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered  Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

Among other things, he is a patron saint of persons falsely accused because when he arrived back in his native Montpellier, France, after a pilgrimage to Rome during which he took care of strangers he met on the way who were suffering from the plague, he was arrested as a spy and put in jail by his uncle who didn’t recognize him. He died in jail after five years and it was only then that the people recognized who he was.

San Roque Cathedral, Caloocan, Philippines [Wikipedia]

As of 15 August, yesterday, the Philippine Daily Inquirer notes in its Kill List that since 30 June, when the current president took his oath of office, 646 have been killed. Since his election on 10 May, 693 deaths have been listed by the Inquirer. Most of these are vigilante murders against ‘suspects’ connected with illegal drugs. Others have been of persons in police custody killed while ‘trying to escape’ and such things. Many are unidentified.

All of these people were poor and not a single one was brought to court. Politicians  and other prominent persons who have ‘surrendered’ have been treated with kid gloves, one even staying for a few days at the official residence of the Chief of Police, a crony of the President who served under the latter as Police Chief in Davao City while the current President was Mayor/Dictator there, a city where there are more than 1,400 unsolved murders. This allegedly peaceful city has, according to the Philippine National Police, one of the worst crime records in the country.

But the escalation of killings is not going unnoticed in the Philippines itself nor in the international media, for example, here.

May San Roque, unjustly jailed, and venerated as a healer, intercede for the poor of the Philippines, so many of whom have been brutally murdered, their bodies left in gutters, under the brutal regime now in power.

Statue of San Roque, Prague [Wikipedia]