16/09/2025
FEATURE | ‘𝘓𝘦𝘵’𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦’
We have heard these words repeatedly in every mob. But calling for peace is easy when you’re sheltered by privilege. You insist so because you’re comfortable, and this deludes you into thinking that “violence” is not needed.
When the floods come, you are safe in your own bed, cocooned in your air-conditioned room, while the rest of the people drown, not just in rainwater, but in poverty. Delivery riders and Mototaxi drivers brave the rain to bring you food, gambling their safety for a day's wage, while you get to complain about delays in the safety of your home.
You have not felt the pain of small vendors being chased off the streets and robbed of their livelihood, having to starve for days on end, just because they sold on the 'wrong' side of the street, all while contractors rake in billions off of ghost projects and rigged biddings.
You have never had to fight traffic for hours to make it to class on time or endure the hunger after skipping meals just to stretch tomorrow’s allowance. You have not witnessed how students compete over every single space available just to study, while the children of politicians get to fly abroad for education, drive expensive cars, and live luxurious lives, paid for by the very taxes of the people their parents oppress.
You have not once seen how the sick and the poor are forced to line up outside overcrowded public hospitals, begging for treatment, all while the former president gets to have his loyalists advocate for his 'proper care'.
And you dare say violence is unnecessary.
You see, the problem was never the lack of budget. No, in fact, the recent hearings have proven that we do have the funds.
It was the blatant theft of the money that rightfully belongs to the people. The same people who have worked day and night, in the streets, just to survive in a system that deems them unworthy of basic needs and services.
It was money that should have been used to build schools, hospitals, and proper infrastructure projects. Money that should have fed the hungry and housed the homeless.
It was the mishandling of funds and the misallocation of national priorities. It was the arrogance of a government that parades itself in false achievements.
Yet political dissent is silenced while government mishaps are pardoned.
And so for you, violence is not needed until you have to protect the rich and the powerful. Until you have to 'subdue' protestors for their lack of decorum. Until you have to kill our journalists to stop us from uncovering your dirt.
But when it comes to the rightful anger of the masses, who have long suffered from decades of corruption, poverty, hunger, and neglect, you cite your bible verses and claim to "talk it over".
Where was this call when we needed to be heard?
You do not need violence because you’re scared to lose the very privilege that cushions you from the consequences of failure, greed, and corruption.
When you have not lived the lives of those who have struggled, been blindsided, starved, silenced, and buried under a system designed to tame them, you do not get to dictate what is "not needed".
You do not get to strip us of our right to rage, to be violent, to rise, and our right to fight.
Because history has proven, time and time again, that when people have nothing left to lose, their anger is not chaos—it is justice. And justice does not stem from silence and complicity. It manifests in the riot, in the anger, and in the loudest defiance.
| Words by Yza Empleo
