The country suffers from extra judicial killings where in all of the people who are involved with drugs would be killed. Ever since president Rodrigo Duterte was elected late 2016 there was a war against drugs and he would order the police or the military to kill them right away, no court sessions, the person wouldn’t even have a chance to explain or defend himself because these officials would kill them right away. As our country continue to face controversial issues, the Filipino citizens become afraid to voice out their opinions. They fear the realities that might hit them once they share their viewpoint on the issue. By being afraid, we inhibit the progression of our country. The opinions of the Filipino citizens are crucial in order to create solutions to these issues. Our group has different ideas on these issues, mainly on the extrajudicial killings. We are not afraid to take a stand, and you shouldn’t be too.

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      The main problem is not drug abuse; it is poverty and unemployment rates. Not all of the people they kill abuse drugs in order to feel pleasure; some of them do it to escape the realities in society. In the Philippines, it is very difficult for people to actually find and keep jobs and not everyone has a source of income. Killing them without any due process is not fair judgment; drugs can be easily planted in the hands of these people. We stand against EJK for we believe that everyone deserves a chance to defend, to be heard and for them to change. What saddens us is that our president is in favor of these killings even if they kill innocent people who aren’t even involved in drugs.  What we really don’t get about our president is, He focuses on drugs yet there are many other issues that our country faces.  We stand completely against EJK, is this the country has come to? Killing innocent people and blaming them to say that they are drug addicts? Or a pusher? The person wouldn’t even have a chance to explain or defend himself or herself and it will be too late.

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     As Augustinians, we believe that EJK is useless to us because it kills time, people and the lives of the many. It’s very bad if you initiate this because nothing will happen and no one will win in this fight because you’ve killed someone who has just done just a simple bad thing that it can be solved throughout time and it will not be permanent. We all want to live in a safe society, everyone wants to live in a peaceful society, and that is achievable without killing these people. Killing these drug users isn’t the BEST solution for this problem; I believe there are still other or better solutions to this kind of event in the country.  We all want a society filled with good government, no killings and more positive in this country not the negative ones who just put this country down from all the hard work. Let all problems be finished, build this broken nation and fix it back again into a much better one than before and let’s live in a safe and a nicer country in the future.