Synthesis of the Literature Review

Overall, people’s potential, motivations, and direction to organize and be organized are complex and diverse. The more significant point of problematizing must therefore be focused on how to make it happen, and in what form would organizing take place. Rise Up for Life and for Rights is one organization that provides free psychosocial therapy to surviving families. As illustrated above, one of their clients named “Sarah” in Pat Nabong’s feature for the Pulitzer Center, embodies the goal of the said organization (Nabong, 2017). Sarah, a member of the urban poor sector and who painfully lost two family members to the WoD, found herself speaking on behalf of all those affected by the WoD at a public rally held during Pres. Duterte’s second State of the Nation Address last July 24, 2017. Sarah, a surviving family member and regular rallyist, is but one powerful voice during this time of protest as she was joined by fellow surviving family members of other victims, activists, and religious leaders (Nabong, 2017). Her participation in the rally is one expression of the potential of these surviving family members to advocate, and along with other stakeholders, organize movements for justice and human rights. In terms of this review of related literature, the researchers are yet to find academic or featured pieces that illustrate the other aspects of organizing these surviving families are already taking part in.

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Since the onset of the WoD pushed by the Duterte administration, thousands of lives have been lost and will continue to perish if the bloody war against the poor remains rampant. Thousands of innocent people, thousands of marginalized and vulnerable people who have not been given the chance to change nor protect themselves— they have all been the price to pay; a “collateral damage” deemed by the government, just so they can push for their supposed agenda of trying to solve the drug problem.

This war against the poor has affected the lives of the survivors; it left them reeling with grief, trauma, and loss. Their lives, already ridden with poverty and its ill-effects, have been made worse by the violations. They find themselves grappling with financial instability due to the loss of a family member, often the breadwinner, and due to other debts, such as exorbitant funeral fees. The families also experience mental health issues and their family relationship and dynamics take a hard hit brought by the loss of a loved one, with mothers suddenly taking the roles of the fathers, or the children being forced to be the parents of their siblings. The left-behind family members, being forced to look for additional jobs, do not have the time to grieve or are overwhelmed with several interrelated problems all at once. Children had to drop out of school, and often the family had to be separated from each other to survive. Even the communities they live in become a dangerous place as community camaraderie or bayanihan erodes and is instead replaced with fear and mistrust.

The survivors’ holistic well-being has been put in jeopardy to the point of dysfunction; and even the micro, mezzo, and macro systems they are a part of made their coping and recovery harder. They face discrimination and stigma from their neighbors, their school, and from their government. Moreover, there is not enough assistance being extended to them. The government has no specific programs for the left-behind families of the WoD, while the CSOs do not have enough resources to be able to meet the needs of all survivors.

All these point to the never-ending cycle of the hardships the families face. Because of this, they are vulnerable to HRVs and abuse, which in turn results in yet another bout of suffering as they lose a family member and experience dysfunction in their biopsychosocial well-being. Their hardships do not stop with their loss, as their lives thereafter become uprooted due to several internal and external factors that make their coping and recovery process harder.

However, the fight against the bloody drug war does not stop. Some of the survivors of these HRVs, after having their whole lives uprooted and left in shambles, want justice for their loved ones. They want accountability, they want to push for the truth, in hopes that ultimately, no one else has to suffer like they did. Finally, rather than a country run rampant with fear and impunity, they want peace and the assurance that marginalization is abolished so all citizens can be treated like human beings worthy of justice, respect, and acknowledgement.

Through the Review of the Related Literature, several gaps were identified. Little literature exists to discuss the facilitating and hindering factors in the systems the families are part of that affect their grieving, coping, and recovery process. Furthermore, existing literature does not seem to differentiate the coping and recovery process the survivors undergo, thus failing to contextualize the experiences and situation of the survivors at different points in their lives. There is also little literature that showcases what factors in the families’ internal and external systems encourage them to seek accountability from the government. Moreover, there is little to no existing literature that explores the spiritual impact of WoD to the families, and the potential of EJK survivors to organize.

As such, this research aims to fully explore the hindering and facilitating factors present in the survivors’ micro, mezzo, and macro systems that affect their grieving, coping, and recovery, emphasize how the families feel about justice-claiming and the factors affecting their desire to seek accountability, and the survivors’ possible roles as human rights advocates.