Recovering: What Makes Their Recovery Harder

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After the families have dealt with the aftermath of the incident, how are they able to recover from it? What factors present in their micro, mezzo, and macro systems helped or hindered them from moving forward? Recovery generally pertains to “the individuals’ ability to overcome traumatic events and continue living their lives without allowing past thoughts and feelings to overwhelm them. However, it does not necessarily mean being completely unaffected by the past. Moreover, there is no one way to recover; recovery varies for everyone” (Manitoba Trauma Information and Education Centre, n.d.). Bearing in mind the multi-faceted realities to which the families are part of, several elements need to be acknowledged as they play an important role—whether facilitating or hindering—in how the families try to recover.

The hindering factors that will be discussed shall be defined as those that are present in the survivors’ internal and external systems—interpersonal, family-level, communitylevel, and societal-level—that disrupt their recovery process. These include elements that refrain the family from focusing on healing and recovery from the incident. The economic, biological-psychological, and social factors that negatively affect the way they move forward after the incident shall be discussed in detail.

Looking at the economic state, the family members, brought by sudden changes in their financial status, have to be separated from each other in order to work at faraway places or to be adopted by their well-off relatives, resulting in the disintegration of the family relationship—the main support system the survivors should have (Conde, 2020). Women also become overwhelmed with juggling productive and economic work as they have to look after their house and children and, at the same time, focus on generating income. Because of the changes in family dynamics and relationships brought by the sudden financial instability and role-reversal, families are stuck focusing on survival and keeping the family afloat and they are unable to have an easy time recovering and focusing on the sustainability of their well-being (PhilRights, 2017).

Regarding the families’ biological and psychological well-being, the family members having to double their efforts in working often report a decline in their physical health, which would then come back again to their inability to provide for their family as time passes by (Felbab-Brown, 2017), showing the cycle of their multifaceted suffering which prevent them from being able to fully recover from the incident.

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Their road to recovery is also marred by the stigma and discrimination they face for losing a family member to the government’s WoD. Children are bullied in school once their classmates are made aware of the reason why the children’s family members are killed, leading not only to them quitting school but also to additional stress and trauma (Boghani, 2019). Children face stigmatization as their family is now branded as drug users or pushers (NASWEI, 2017, p. 70). What should have been the children’s support system, aside from their family and relatives, now contributes to additional suffering the children have to go through.

In addition to the stigma faced by the family in the community, one social factor that affects their recovery is the feeling of fear in their neighborhood that prevents them from healing from their loss. In several communities, police personnel continue to make rounds and conduct operations, resulting in their presence inciting fear and wariness among the people in the community (PhilRights, 2019).

Another big institution responsible for how the families are able to manage the effects of the HRV they experienced is the media. Responsible for bridging the government to the people and vice versa, the media helps shape how the public reacts to a certain issue, which, in this case, is the WoD and how they deal with the surviving families of the said policy. In one study conducted by Greçer (2018), three media outlets—Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Bulletin, and the Philippine Star—were analyzed based on how they frame any news about the WoD. It posits that the three outlets generally take a “neutral tone” when reporting, as they would present both the administration and the opposition’s sides regarding the WoD (Greçer, 2018). However, Manila Bulletin seems to primarily report the ‘positive’ side of the anti-illegal drug campaign such as the creation of drug-free cities and economic boost; Philippine Daily Inquirer adopts the ‘negative’ side of the said policy like the countless cases of EJKs; while the Philippine Star presents equally both sides of the WoD (Greçer, 2018).

With conflicting points of view being put out for public consumption, it is only natural that the public will choose a particular side. Early in the implementation of the WoD, communities would report feeling safe as they feel that crime rates have gone down and they believe in the effectiveness of the policy in cracking down on the drug issue (Kennert & Eligh, 2019). A survey conducted in the third quarter of 2017, however, shows that more than half of the respondents feel that only the poor are being targeted and not the issue of drugs itself (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2017). Nevertheless, however the public views the issue of the WoD, it will either mean the stigmatization and discrimination or the acceptance and understanding of the plight of the surviving families; and either of which will surely affect how the families cope and deal with the aftermath of the violation.