Disclaimer: All words, sentences and paragraphs are all of my own. If you cannot understand or accept opinions that is against your own, I suggest that you stop reading. I will not judge you for doing so. But please don't judge me for what I've written. 

In our Rizal class, my group was given the task to discuss Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. I will not delve in to our report but here is a gist of what it was about. Machiavelli is considered as one of the most important people in the Renaissance period. He worked for the Florentine government for fourteen years, until the Medici family regained power and ousted him from his post.  Thus, in order for Machiavelli to have his post once again, he decided to write The Prince.

The Prince is Machiavelli's most prominent work. Its main function is to serve as an advice-book for leaders. But, as harmless as it may sound, The Prince is definitely not your ordinary leadership-slash-inspirational book. This is so because it is based from Machiavelli's principle, "The end justifies the means." It means that as long as you are moving for the greater good, the goodness or badness of your actions to achieve such goal is irrelevant. Honestly, if this report was given to us a year ago, it wouldn't matter so much to me. This blog post would never be written in the first place. Yet, why am I writing this? Why are you reading this? You want an answer? Open your television and watch the news. 

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs is not new for us. It has been the words that he constantly uttered since he announced his presidential campaign. And, surprise, surprise. This is still the words that we hear each and everyday. Each and everyday, news shows presents to us the current number of people killed in Duterte's war on drugs. Each and everyday, we see and hear all of these information and what scares me is that we are going immune to it. I am going immune and even indifferent to it. And that made me think.

It made me think if the Philippines has finally found its prince. The prince who will do anything and everything for the so-called greater goods. It made me look back to all the people killed for the current war on drugs. Don't get me wrong, though. I am not saying that the war on drugs is bad in its entirety. Drugs is one of the many problems of the country and from these stems more and more crimes. What I am against is the means by which we are fighting it. Kill people and that's it? Kill people and the crime rates will go down? Kill people and we are safe? That's plain BS. 

Where is the due process? Where are the laws and regulation? Where are the people that are expected to protect the Filipino people? They are all influenced by the prince. In my own opinion, all actions made and made for the prince are justified. Why? Because it is for the greater good. Or is it?

All I am asking you is to discern. Has the Philippines been so desperate for peace and order that we are willing to be blind? 

Think.