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| Forgotten Victims of Drug Addicts |
The International Criminal Court (ICC) claims to stand for justice, fairness, and the protection of human rights. Yet many Filipinos are asking a hard and uncomfortable question: why does the ICC focus only on victims of the drug war while ignoring the countless innocent victims of drug addicts?
For years, the global narrative has centered on those killed during anti-drug operations, presenting them as the only victims of a national tragedy. This narrative is incomplete and deeply misleading. It erases an entire group of Filipinos who suffered long before any police operation—the innocent victims of drug addicts.
Children raped and molested. Women assaulted in their own homes. Elderly people robbed and killed. Fathers stabbed in dark streets. Mothers murdered for small amounts of cash. Families destroyed because an addict needed money for the next fix. These are not isolated stories. These are real Filipino lives lost and shattered.
The harsh reality is this: many labeled as victims of the drug war were themselves drug addicts. Meanwhile, the victims of drug addicts were ordinary, law-abiding citizens—children, workers, students, and senior citizens—who had no choice in becoming victims.
Why are these innocent victims absent from ICC investigations? Why are their cries ignored by international prosecutors? Why does their suffering fail to qualify as a human rights issue?
Justice cannot be selective. Human rights cannot favor one group while dismissing another. When the ICC investigates only one side of the tragedy, it creates the impression that some lives matter more than others.
Filipinos who lived in drug-infested communities know the truth. They lived in fear every night. They locked their doors early. They warned their children not to walk alone. Drug addiction did not bring sympathy to these neighborhoods—it brought terror.
Investigating only the deaths of suspected drug personalities while ignoring the long list of innocent victims harmed by addicts is not justice. It is imbalance. It is bias. And it raises serious questions about the credibility of international intervention.
If the ICC truly wants fairness, it must examine the full picture. It must recognize all victims—especially the innocent Filipinos whose lives were destroyed by drugs and addiction.
Filipinos are not demanding blind support for violence. They are demanding balance. They are demanding recognition that the drug crisis created victims long before the drug war ever began.
Until all victims are acknowledged, many Filipinos will continue to believe that this is not justice—but selective outrage.
