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Patron Saints Of Nothing By Randy Ribay

713 Words3 Pages

The book Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay follows the journey of a Filipino-American teenager named Jay as he tries to find out the truth about his cousin's death in the Philippines. Through Jay's perspective, the reader witnesses the social injustice that exists within the country. Jay's cousin, Jun, experienced these injustices firsthand, and through Jay, the reader can see the impact of social injustice in the Philippines. People struggling with drugs and poverty in the Philippines face social injustice daily by being criminalized by society. One of the primary ways that Jun experienced social injustice was through the country's Drug War. When elected, President Rodrigo Duterte promised to eliminate the drug trade within the Philippines …show more content…

The Police were given free rein to arrest, detain, or kill anyone suspected of using or being involved with drugs, without any regard for due process or human rights. Jun was one of the many victims of this policy, and he was killed by police officers who claimed that he was a drug dealer. After finding a list in his uncle's office, Jay finds Mia to help him translate it. “Then, ‘It's a list of drug dealers, isn't it?’ ‘Most likely,’ she says. ‘Every barangay captain is asked to keep a list of suspects for the authorities’” (Ribay 129). Jun’s name is on this list, and although there is no proof he is involved with drugs, he is considered a suspect. This shows the flaws of the policy because even if Jun is innocent because he is on the list, he could be killed by a police officer. Which is exactly what happened. Jun’s …show more content…

Although his family is not poor, after running away from home, he lives in the slums. The slums are densely populated areas where people who grapple with poverty live. People who live in the slums are discriminated against for where they live. These people do not have much money and therefore they are seen as dirty and dangerous by other Filipinos. Many people also create a correlation between drugs and the slums. They think that because they live in the slums, they probably use drugs. This correlation is incorrect and shows how injustice can create unnecessary and untrue issues. As well as being discriminated against by people in the Philippines for living in the slums, people from other countries, specifically the United States, also discriminate against people living in these conditions. Even Jun admits that he assumed the slums would be in worse condition than they were. When walking through the slums with Mia and a professor he says, “I'm ashamed to admit that I expected more misery. Expected it to feel like one of those commercials where they play mournful music and some white actor's compassionate voice-over urges you to sponsor a child because it's the only way they will be saved from their hellish third-world country” (Ribay 197). The combination of the discrimination of these two groups against people who live in the slums creates social injustice. People are treated differently because of

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