*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
I remember exactly how I felt when I watched the video of Kara David. It was her birthday. There was a cake, candles, and the familiar softness of a moment meant for gratitude and quiet joy. Then she made her wish—death to all plunderers. I did not flinch. I did not argue. I did not rush to judge. I simply sat there, silent, letting the words sink in.
Because I understood where they came from.
There is a weariness in this country that does not go away when the day ends. It lives in flooded streets and unfinished classrooms, in hospitals where families wait longer than they should, and in communities that have learned to expect disappointment as part of daily life. It is the fatigue of watching corruption repeat itself while justice crawls forward, slow and uncertain. Sometimes that weariness spills into places it does not belong—into prayers, into birthdays, into wishes that were once hopeful. What Kara said did not sound like hatred to me. It sounded like someone who had waited too long.
And yet, as human as that moment was, something inside me tightened.
I have learned—slowly, painfully—that wishing death, even on those who have done great harm, carries a cost. Death is the easiest escape a plunderer could ever have. It is not justice. It is quiet. When someone dies, cases are left unfinished, investigations stop mid-sentence, and courtrooms fall silent. Stolen wealth remains hidden, sometimes enjoyed by others who never had to answer for it.
I have seen how death closes mouths that should have confessed. How it ends hearings that were supposed to reveal the truth. Accountability requires the living. Justice needs someone who can stand, answer, return what was stolen, and be judged. A courtroom—long, public, humiliating—is far more painful than a grave.
To wish death, I realized, is sometimes to wish escape.
There were moments in my own life when I heard news about people who had insulted me, harmed me, or committed crimes against me. I will admit this quietly: for a brief second, I felt relief. Even happiness. Not because someone died, but because it felt as if the universe had finally spoken. As if karma had not forgotten.
But that feeling never stayed.
Almost immediately, grief followed. Because death never arrives alone. It leaves behind children who will grow up with unanswered questions, spouses who will sleep beside absence, parents who will carry a pain they never deserved. In those moments, my heart felt divided—relieved because it seemed like justice, broken because it was still a life that ended.
That was when I became clear with myself. I never wished them dead. Not once. Not even in anger. I let time, the law, and whatever force governs balance in this world do their work. Because I have seen how what we release into the world often finds its way back to us—not always as death, but as restlessness, bitterness, and a quiet erosion of mercy.
Hatred changes us first. It teaches the heart that destruction is an acceptable answer. Slowly, without noticing, sleep becomes lighter, joy becomes conditional, and compassion dries up. We begin to resemble the very darkness we say we oppose.
After Kara David’s birthday wish, the news seemed to grow heavier. Reports followed of political figures dying—names that people quickly linked to flood-control projects and corruption. On social media, comments appeared saying, “This must be the wish coming true.” And that, more than anything, made me sad.
Not because I believe a wish causes death, but because of how easily we begin to equate death with justice. Whether coincidence or not, the question that haunted me was this: what happens to a society when it starts seeing endings as solutions? When death becomes something quietly celebrated, something essential in us has already begun to disappear.
So I found myself wishing for something harder.
I wished for plunderers to live. To live long enough to face courtrooms and verdicts. To live long enough to see stolen wealth returned and used properly—for schools, for roads, for families who never benefited from corruption. I have seen how hope returns when justice is visible—when those who once seemed untouchable grow old behind bars and the money they stole finds its way back to the people.
In those moments, light appears. Slowly. Carefully. But it appears.
Restraint, I have learned, is not weakness. It is a quiet, bleeding form of courage. It is holding your hand steady when anger urges you to strike. It is swallowing a scream so that your soul does not become another casualty. Sometimes, the bravest wish is not for someone to disappear, but for them to stay—to stand trembling before truth, to answer publicly, to carry the full weight of what they have done.
And so I return, gently, to Kara David’s birthday wish. Not to judge it. Not to argue against it. But to understand it. It was not hatred. It was exhaustion—the exhaustion of a citizen, of a nation tired of waiting for justice.
But in the middle of that exhaustion, I choose the harder wish.
Not the wish for plunderers to die a natural death, or by accident or suicide, but the wish for them to live. To live long enough to face justice and be jailed for the rest of their lives, suffering and rotting in prison. To return what was stolen. To remind all of us that crime—no matter how long it hides, how powerful it becomes, or how wealthy it grows—always has an end.
Because death is a closed door, quiet and unforgiving.
But justice is a wound that remembers—it aches, it speaks, and it refuses to fade.
And I want this country to keep remembering, even through tears, because the day we forget is the day we finally lose ourselves.
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