State Killing, Denial, and Cycles of Violence in the Philippines (original) (raw)

2018, Philippine Sociological Review

This article explores the cyclical nature of violence in the Philippine War on Drugs, with the aim of charting potential paths out of this violence. With a focus on how media framings of violence can help bring violence to an end, the article proposes a cycle of violence paradigm to explain how violence progresses in three stages: mass public socialization into violence via violent political rhetoric, a process of state denial that sustains the violence, and finally, public socialization out of violence through an effective response by media, communities, and civil society (i.e., human rights activists, academics, churches) at the national level. State strategies of denial, coupled with a lack of transparency in security force operations (i.e., police, military, militia), help perpetuate the violence. Amid a cycle of violence, the deaths of innocent individuals can lead to increased media coverage, public discourse and awareness, which in turn, leads to public identification with the victim and fear for the safety of one's own community and family. As case studies, a comparative narrative analysis is performed of two killings that led to mass public engagement at the national level, namely that of the Filipino teenager Kian delos Santos and the Korean expat businessman Jee Ick Joo.