opinion about war on drugs in the philippines essay

The human rights consequences of the war on drugs in the Philippines

Subscribe to this week in foreign policy, vanda felbab-brown vanda felbab-brown director - initiative on nonstate armed actors , co-director - africa security initiative , senior fellow - foreign policy , strobe talbott center for security, strategy, and technology @vfelbabbrown.

August 8, 2017

• 18 min read

On August 2, 2017, Vanda Felbab-Brown submitted a statement for the record for the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the human rights consequences of the war on drugs in the Philippines. Read her full statement below.

I am a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution.  However, as an independent think tank, the Brookings Institution does not take institutional positions on any issue.  Therefore, my testimony represents my personal views and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable. Resulting in egregious and large-scale violations of human rights, it amounts to state-sanctioned murder. It is also counterproductive for countering the threats and harms that the illegal drug trade and use pose to society — exacerbating both problems while profoundly shredding the social fabric and rule of law in the Philippines. The United States and the international community must condemn and sanction the government of the Philippines for its conduct of the war on drugs.

THE SLAUGHTER SO FAR

On September 2, 2016 after a bomb went off in Davao where Duterte had been  mayor for 22 years, the Philippine president declared a “state of lawlessness” 1 in the country. That is indeed what he unleashed in the name of fighting crime and drugs since he became the country’s president on June 30, 2016. With his explicit calls for police to kill drug users and dealers 2 and the vigilante purges Duterte ordered of neighborhoods, 3 almost 9000 people accused of drug dealing or drug use were killed in the Philippines in the first year of his government – about one third by police in anti-drug operations. 4 Although portrayed as self-defense shootings, these acknowledged police killings are widely believed to be planned and staged, with security cameras and street lights unplugged, and drugs and guns planted on the victim after the shooting. 5 According to the interviews and an unpublished report an intelligence officer shared with Reuters , the police are paid about 10,000 pesos ($200) for each killing of a drug suspect as well as other accused criminals. The monetary awards for each killing are alleged to rise to 20,000 pesos ($400) for a street pusher, 50,000 pesos ($990) for a member of a neighborhood council, one million pesos ($20,000) for distributors, retailers, and wholesalers, and five million ($100,000) for “drug lords.” Under pressure from higher-up authorities and top officials, local police officers and members of neighborhood councils draw up lists of drug suspects. Lacking any kind transparency, accountability, and vetting, these so-called “watch lists” end up as de facto hit lists. A Reuters investigation revealed that police officers were killing some 97 percent of drug suspects during police raids, 6 an extraordinarily high number and one that many times surpasses accountable police practices. That is hardly surprising, as police officers are not paid any cash rewards for merely arresting suspects. Both police officers and members of neighborhood councils are afraid not to participate in the killing policies, fearing that if they fail to comply they will be put on the kill lists themselves.

Similarly, there is widespread suspicion among human rights groups and monitors, 7 reported in regularly in the international press, that the police back and encourage the other extrajudicial killings — with police officers paying assassins or posing as vigilante groups. 8 A Reuters interview with a retired Filipino police intelligence officer and another active-duty police commander reported both officers describing in granular detail how under instructions from top-level authorities and local commanders, police units mastermind the killings. 9 No systematic investigations and prosecutions of these murders have taken place, with top police officials suggesting that they are killings among drug dealers themselves. 10

Such illegal vigilante justice, with some 1,400 extrajudicial killings, 11 was also the hallmark of Duterte’s tenure as Davao’s mayor, earning him the nickname Duterte Harry. And yet, far from being an exemplar of public safety and crime-free city, Davao remains the murder capital of the Philippines. 12 The current police chief of the Philippine National Police Ronald Dela Rosa and President Duterte’s principal executor of the war on drugs previously served as the police chief in Davao between 2010 and 2016 when Duterte was the town’s mayor.

In addition to the killings, mass incarceration of alleged drug users is also under way in the Philippines. The government claims that more than a million users and street-level dealers have voluntarily “surrendered” to the police. Many do so out of fear of being killed otherwise. However, in interviews with Reuters , a Philippine police commander alleged that the police are given quotas of “surrenders,” filling them by arresting anyone on trivial violations (such as being shirtless or drunk). 13 Once again, the rule of law is fundamentally perverted to serve a deeply misguided and reprehensible state policy.

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SMART DESIGN OF DRUG POLICIES VERSUS THE PHILIPPINES REALITY

Smart policies for addressing drug retail markets look very different than the violence and state-sponsored crime President Duterte has thrust upon the Philippines. Rather than state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and mass incarceration, policing retail markets should have several objectives: The first, and most important, is to make drug retail markets as non-violent as possible. Duterte’s policy does just the opposite: in slaughtering people, it is making a drug-distribution market that was initially rather peaceful (certainly compared to Latin America, 14 such as in Brazil 15 ) very violent – this largely the result of the state actions, extrajudicial killings, and vigilante killings he has ordered. Worse yet, the police and extrajudicial killings hide other murders, as neighbors and neighborhood committees put on the list of drug suspects their rivals and people whose land or property they want to steal; thus, anyone can be killed by anyone and then labeled a pusher.

The unaccountable en masse prosecution of anyone accused of drug trade involvement or drug use also serves as a mechanism to squash political pluralism and eliminate political opposition. Those who dare challenge President Duterte and his reprehensible policies are accused of drug trafficking charges and arrested themselves. The most prominent case is that of Senator Leila de Lima. But it includes many other lower-level politicians. Without disclosing credible evidence or convening a fair trial, President Duterte has ordered the arrest of scores of politicians accused of drug-trade links; three such accused mayors have died during police arrests, often with many other individuals dying in the shoot-outs. The latest such incident occurred on July 30, 2017 when Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of Ozamiz in the southern Philippines, was killed during a police raid on his house, along with Parojinog’s wife and at least five other people.

Another crucial goal of drug policy should be to enhance public health and limit the spread of diseases linked to drug use. The worst possible policy is to push addicts into the shadows, ostracize them, and increase the chance of overdoses as well as a rapid spread of HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, and hepatitis. In prisons, users will not get adequate treatment for either their addiction or their communicable disease. That is the reason why other countries that initially adopted similar draconian wars on drugs (such as Thailand in 2001 16 and Vietnam in the same decade 17 ) eventually tried to backpedal from them, despite the initial popularity of such policies with publics in East Asia. Even though throughout East Asia, tough drug policies toward drug use and the illegal drug trade remain government default policies and often receive widespread support, countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, and even Myanmar have gradually begun to experiment with or are exploring HARM reduction approaches, such as safe needle exchange programs and methadone maintenance, as the ineffective and counterproductive nature and human rights costs of the harsh war on drugs campaign become evident.

Moreover, frightening and stigmatizing drug users and pushing use deeper underground will only exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and tuberculosis. Even prior to the Duterte’s brutal war on drugs, the rate of HIV infections in the Philippines has been soaring due to inadequate awareness and failure to support safe sex practices, such as access to condoms. Along with Afghanistan, the Philippine HIV infection rate is the highest in Asia, increasing 50 percent between 2010 and 2015. 18 Among high-risk groups, including injection- drug users, gay men, transgender women, and female prostitutes, the rate of new infections jumped by 230 percent between 2011and 2015. Duterte’s war on drugs will only intensify these worrisome trends among drug users.

Further, as Central America has painfully learned in its struggles against street gangs, mass incarceration policies turn prisons into recruiting grounds for organized crime. Given persisting jihadi terrorism in the Philippines, mass imprisonment of low-level dealers and drug traffickers which mix them with terrorists in prisons can result in the establishment of dangerous alliances between terrorists and criminals, as has happened in Indonesia.

The mass killings and imprisonment in the Philippines will not dry up demand for drugs: the many people who will end up in overcrowded prisons and poorly-designed treatment centers (as is already happening) will likely remain addicted to drugs, or become addicts. There is always drug smuggling into prisons and many prisons are major drug distribution and consumption spots.

Even when those who surrendered are placed into so-called treatment centers, instead of outright prisons, large problems remain. Many who surrendered do not necessarily have a drug abuse problem as they surrendered preemptively to avoid being killed if they for whatever reason ended up on the watch list. Those who do have a drug addiction problem mostly do not receive adequate care. Treatment for drug addiction is highly underdeveloped and underprovided in the Philippines, and China’s rushing in to build larger treatment facilities is unlikely to resolve this problem. In China itself, many so-called treatment centers often amounted to de facto prisons or force-labor detention centers, with highly questionable methods of treatment and very high relapse rates.

As long as there is demand, supply and retailing will persist, simply taking another form. Indeed, there is a high chance that Duterte’s hunting down of low-level pushers (and those accused of being pushers) will significantly increase organized crime in the Philippines and intensify corruption. The dealers and traffickers who will remain on the streets will only be those who can either violently oppose law enforcement and vigilante groups or bribe their way to the highest positions of power. By eliminating low-level, mostly non-violent dealers, Duterte is paradoxically and counterproductively setting up a situation where more organized and powerful drug traffickers and distribution will emerge.

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Inducing police to engage in de facto shoot-to-kill policies is enormously corrosive of law enforcement, not to mention the rule of law. There is a high chance that the policy will more than ever institutionalize top-level corruption, as only powerful drug traffickers will be able to bribe their way into upper-levels of the Philippine law enforcement system, and the government will stay in business. Moreover, corrupt top-level cops and government officials tasked with such witch-hunts will have the perfect opportunity to direct law enforcement against their drug business rivals as well as political enemies, and themselves become the top drug capos. Unaccountable police officers officially induced to engage in extrajudicial killings easily succumb to engaging in all kinds of criminality, being uniquely privileged to take over criminal markets. Those who should protect public safety and the rule of law themselves become criminals.

Such corrosion of the law enforcement agencies is well under way in the Philippines as a result of President Duterte’s war on drugs. Corruption and the lack of accountability in the Philippine police l preceded Duterte’s presidency, but have become exacerbated since, with the war on drugs blatant violations of rule of law and basic legal and human rights principles a direct driver. The issue surfaced visibly and in a way that the government of the Philippines could not simply ignore in January 2017 when Philippine drug squad police officers kidnapped a South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo and extorted his family for money. Jee was ultimately killed inside the police headquarters. President Duterte expressed outrage and for a month suspended the national police from participating in the war on drugs while some police purges took places. Rather than a serious effort to root out corruption, those purges served principally to tighten control over the police. The wrong-headed illegal policies of Duterte’s war on drugs were not examined or corrected. Nor were other accountability and rule of law practices reinforced. Thus when after a month the national police were was asked to resume their role in the war on the drugs, the perverted system slid back into the same human rights violations and other highly detrimental processes and outcomes.

WHAT COUNTERNARCOTICS POLICIES THE PHILIPPINES SHOULD ADOPT

The Philippines should adopt radically different approaches: The shoot-to-kill directives to police and calls for extrajudicial killings should stop immediately, as should dragnets against low-level pushers and users. If such orders are  issued, prosecutions of any new extrajudicial killings and investigations of encounter killings must follow. In the short term, the existence of pervasive culpability may prevent the adoption of any policy that would seek to investigate and prosecute police and government officials and members of neighborhood councils who have been involved in the state-sanctioned slaughter. If political leadership in the Philippines changes, however, standing up a truth commission will be paramount. In the meantime, however, all existing arrested drug suspects need to be given fair trials or released.

Law-enforcement and rule of law components of drug policy designs need to make reducing criminal violence and violent militancy among their highest objectives. The Philippines should build up real intelligence on the drug trafficking networks that President Duterte alleges exist in the Philippines and target their middle operational layers, rather than low-level dealers, as well as their corruption networks in the government and law enforcement. However, the latter must not be used to cover up eliminating rival politicians and independent political voices.

To deal with addiction, the Philippines should adopt enlightened harm-reduction measures, including methadone maintenance, safe-needle exchange, and access to effective treatment. No doubt, these are difficult and elusive for methamphetamines, the drug of choice in the Philippines. Meth addiction is very difficult to treat and is associated with high morbidity levels. Instead of turning his country into a lawless Wild East, President Duterte should make the Philippines the center of collaborative East Asian research on how to develop effective public health approaches to methamphetamine addiction.

IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY

It is imperative that the United States strongly and unequivocally condemns the war on drugs in the Philippines and deploys sanctions until state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and other state-authorized rule of law violations are ended. The United States should adopt such a position even if President Duterte again threatens the U.S.-Philippines naval bases agreements meant to provide the Philippines and other countries with protection against China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea. President Duterte’s pro-China preferences will not be moderated by the United States being cowed into condoning egregious violations of human rights. In fact, a healthy U.S.-Philippine long-term relationship will be undermined by U.S. silence on state-sanctioned murder.

However, the United States must recognize that drug use in the Philippines and East Asia more broadly constitute serious threats to society. Although internationally condemned for the war on drugs, President Duterte remains highly popular in the Philippines, with 80 percent of Filipinos still expressing “much trust” for him after a year of his war on drugs and 9,000 people dead. 19 Unlike in Latin America, throughout East Asia, drug use is highly disapproved of, with little empathy for users and only very weak support for drug policy reform. Throughout the region, as well as in the Philippines, tough-on-drugs approaches, despite their ineffective outcomes and human rights violations, often remain popular. Fostering an honest and complete public discussion about the pros and cons of various drug policy approaches is a necessary element in creating public demand for accountability of drug policy in the Philippines.

Equally important is to develop better public health approaches to dealing with methamphetamine addiction. It is devastating throughout East Asia as well as in the United States, though opiate abuse mortality rates now eclipse methamphetamine drug abuse problems. Meth addiction is very hard to treat and often results in severe morbidity. Yet harm reduction approaches have been predominately geared toward opiate and heroin addictions, with substitution treatments, such as methadone, not easily available for meth and other harm reduction approaches also not directly applicable.

What has been happening in the Philippines is tragic and unconscionable. But if the United States can at least take a leading role in developing harm reduction and effective treatment approaches toward methamphetamine abuse, its condemnation of unjustifiable and reprehensible policies, such as President Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines, will far more soundly resonate in East Asia, better stimulating local publics to demand accountability and respect for rule of law from their leaders.

• Neil Jerome Morales, “Philippines Blames IS-linked Abu Sayyaf for Bomb in Duterte’s Davao,” Reuters , September 2, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-blast-idUSKCN11824W?il=0.
• Rishi Iyengar, “The Killing Time: Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs,” Time , August 24, 2016, http://time.com/4462352/rodrigo-duterte-drug-war-drugs-philippines-killing/.
• Jim Gomez, “Philippine President-Elect Urges Public to Kill Drug Dealers,” The Associated Press, June 5, 2016, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/58fc2315d488426ca2512fc9fc8d6427/philippine-president-elect-urges-public-kill-drug-dealers.
• Manuel Mogato and Clare Baldwin, “Special Report: Police Describe Kill Rewards, Staged Crime Scenes in Duterte’s Drug War,” Reuters , April 18, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-police-specialrep-idUSKBN17K1F4.
• Clare Baldwin , Andrew R.C. Marshall and Damir Sagolj , “Police Rack Up an Almost Perfectly Deadly Record in Philippine Drug War,” Reuters , http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/philippines-duterte-police/.
• See, for example, Human Rights Watch, “Philippines: Police Deceit in ‘Drug War’ Killings,” March 2, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/02/philippines-police-deceit-drug-war-killings ; and Amnesty International, “Philippines: The Police’s Murderous War on the Poor,” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/01/philippines-the-police-murderous-war-on-the-poor/.
• Reuters , April 18, 2017.
• Aurora Almendral, “The General Running Duterte’s Antidrug War,” The New York Times , June 2, 2017.
• “A Harvest of Lead,” The Economist , August 13, 2016, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21704793-rodrigo-duterte-living-up-his-promise-fight-crime-shooting-first-and-asking-questions.
• Reuters, April 18, 2017.
• Vanda Felbab-Brown and Harold Trinkunas, “UNGASS 2016 in Comparative Perspective: Improving the Prospects for Success,” The Brookings Institution, April 29, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2015/04/global-drug-policy/FelbabBrown-TrinkunasUNGASS-2016-final-2.pdf?la=en.
• See, for example, Paula Miraglia, “Drugs and Drug Trafficking in Brazil: Trends and Policies,” The Brookings Institution, April 29, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2015/04/global-drug-policy/Miraglia–Brazil-final.pdf?la=en .
• James Windle, “Drugs and Drug Policy in Thailand,” Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS 2016, The Brookings Institution, April 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2015/04/global-drug-policy/WindleThailand-final.pdf?la=en .
• James Windle, “Drugs and Drug Policy in Vietnam,” Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS 2016, The Brookings Institution, April 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WindleVietnam-final.pdf.
• Aurora Almendral, “As H.I.V. Soars in the Philippines, Conservatives Kill School Condom Plan,” The New York Times , February 28, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/world/asia/as-hiv-soars-in-philippines-conservatives-kill-school-condom-plan.html?_r=0.
• Nicole Curato, “In the Philippines, All the President’s People,” The New York Times , May 31, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/opinion/philippines-rodrigo-duterte.html.

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War on drugs: Success or failure? Who knows?

When Rodrigo Duterte ran for president in 2016, he focused on three major issues: corruption, crime, and drugs. The question that should be asked, after 57 months into his 72-month term, is: Has he succeeded? Our measure of success will be the government’s own targets as set out in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 (PDP)

If you ask President Duterte himself, or if you listen to his assessment, directly or as reported in the press, he has not succeeded, at least with respect to corruption and drugs.

Looking at the latest Statistical Indicators on Philippine Development (StatDev) compiled by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)—StatDev “aims to serve as an early warning measure by showing the likelihood of achieving the economic and social development goals set forth in the Philippine Development Plan (PDP), including the midterm updates”—one finds that the likelihood of achieving the targets are “Low,” with respect to corruption, meaning that the government has a less-than-50-percent chance of achieving them.

What are some of the corruption targets? There’s the Control of Corruption Indicator, in which the government sought to increase its percentile ranking in the World Governance Indicators (WGI) from the 42nd percentile in 2015 to the 50th percentile in 2022. What happened? As of 2018, the WGI indicates that instead of improving, we regressed. Our percentile ranking went from 42nd to the 34th percentile. That’s a huge dip.

And there’s the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The PDP targeted that our percentile rank rise from 43rd to 50th. Instead of improving, we deteriorated to the 37th percentile in 2019.

The PDP also targeted an improvement in our percentile rank in the WGI’s Government Effectiveness Indicator. It was a modest target: from 58th percentile to 60th percentile in six years. Alas, during the Duterte administration, the Philippines deteriorated again: to 55th percentile.

So, the PDP indicators do support President Duterte’s assessment with respect to corruption. Failure.

Are there any indicators in the PDP that would help us determine the government’s performance with respect to drugs and crime? After all, Chapter 18 of the PDP, entitled “Ensuring Security, Public Order and Safety,” is devoted to the topic, where it is emphasized that the administration accords it “high priority,” and that “all forms of criminality and illegal drugs (are to be) significantly reduced.”

Well, Reader, know that of the 647 indicators that are included in the Results Matrices of the PDP, none of them have to do with crimes or drugs. Why in heaven’s name not? Because, I am told, of national security reasons. I kid you not. This means that the PSA, thru StatDev, cannot monitor the effectiveness of the police or drug-related programs. Only the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency can do so, and we must take their word for it.

So while crimes, drugs, and corruption were the battle cry of the Duterte campaign, in the case of crime and drugs, we have no baseline indicators (what it was like). Neither do we have targets to be achieved by 2022. Except maybe in the hearts of the concerned agencies, not to be shared with anyone but the President, presumably. One does not even know whether they exist. And if they did set out those targets, only President Duterte is aware of them and can make an assessment.

Which is why Mr. Duterte’s self-assessment—that his administration has failed with respect to the drug problem—can only be taken at face value. Understand, we are talking about the success or failure of these programs, using the government’s own standards as our metric.

One can only wonder: What is so delicate about crime and drugs that national security could be endangered by transparency surrounding the targets for their vanquishment? There is no dearth of published statistics on crime and drugs by the PNP and PDEA in government websites. Why were they not required to give the PDP what their targets were, so the PSA could monitor their performance with the same rigor that is applied with respect to other government agencies, like Agriculture, Trade and Industry, etc.?

It makes no sense. But then, what does, in this administration?

——————

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The Sunday Story: Life in the Shadow of the Philippines' Drug War

Tin Serioso, 27, with her 1-year-old daughter Cat and 6-year-old Jay, inside their home in Novaliches, Quezon City in the Philippines on April 4, 2024. Her husband Chrismel Serioso was killed by police on October 3, 2023. Kimberly dela Cruz for NPR hide caption

Tin Serioso, 27, with her 1-year-old daughter Cat and 6-year-old Jay, inside their home in Novaliches, Quezon City in the Philippines on April 4, 2024. Her husband Chrismel Serioso was killed by police on October 3, 2023.

"They can just kill anyone." Since 2016, thousands have been killed in the Philippines' war on drugs. The bloody campaign began under the Philippines' last president, Rodrigo Duterte, who said he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts in the country. When current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in 2022, he promised to end this spree of state-sanctioned killings of alleged drug users and sellers, and focus on rehabilitation instead. In today's episode of The Sunday Story , NPR's Emily Feng travels to the Philippines to see what has come of Marcos' attempt to burnish the country's international reputation and to put an end to what most people in the Philippines now refer to as EJKs, or "extrajudicial killings." She found that the killings have continued. And she spoke to researchers, doctors, advocates, and victims' families to try to understand why.

This episode was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Jenny Schmidt. Audio engineering by Robert Rodriguez.

We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at [email protected]. Listen to Up First on Apple Podcasts and Spotify .

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President Duterte’s War on Drugs Is a Pretense

He is using it to quash the opposition in the Philippines. I should know: I’m one of his victims.

By Leila de Lima

Ms. de Lima is a senator in the Philippines.

MANILA — Since taking office just over three years ago, President Rodrigo Duterte has not only overseen a murderous campaign on drug users and sellers. He has also unleashed a brazen assault on the country’s democratic institutions — at times, using his so-called war on drugs as a pretense for going after his political adversaries and dissenters .

I should know: I’m one of its victims. I am writing this essay from a prison cell in Camp Crame, the national Police Headquarters in Manila. I have spent the past two years here, after being arrested on fabricated drug-trafficking charges. But the only crime I committed was to use my platform as a senator to oppose the brutality of this administration’s campaign against drugs. And I hardly am the only target.

Mr. Duterte’s government has orchestrated the removal of a Supreme Court chief justice and harassed and sidelined Vice President Leni Robredo (she belongs to a different party ). Independent media houses have been bullied with bogus criminal charges ; one was effectively pressured into being sold to Duterte allies . The president has publicly threatened human rights activists and others with death — never mind that he or his aides often then downplay his statements as lighthearted banter .

But most worrisome, perhaps, is the administration’s effort to cow what little remains of the formal political opposition, often through politicized criminal cases.

Take my case. In 2016, shortly after Mr. Duterte’s election, I opened a Senate investigation to look into extrajudicial killings that were being committed under the guise of fighting drug crimes. The president’s retribution was as swift as it was ruthless.

He once said, “ I will have to destroy her in public .” He has called me an “ immoral woman ,” and in 2016 his allies claimed to possess a compromising sex video and threatened to show it to a congressional panel. In February 2017, I surrendered to the police after arrest warrants were issued against me. I have remained in detention since, facing three drug-related charges — for which the evidence is laughably thin. The United Nations , the European Union , various human rights groups and other experts have called the charges politically motivated.

Other opposition lawmakers have faced similar treatment, in particular those who oppose Mr. Duterte’s so-called war on drugs or other key administration policies, such as his efforts to bring back the death penalty or to revise the Constitution , most likely in order to remove limits on presidential terms. Many of these cases beggar belief. In October 2018, the Congressmen Antonio Tinio and Ariel Casilao organized a peaceful protest in Davao City against the continued application of martial law on the southern island of Mindanao, after brazen terrorist operations by an armed group linked to the Islamic State in the spring of 2017. The congressmen were then charged with child abuse , apparently because a handful of indigenous youth attended the demonstration.

Another frequent target is Senator Risa Hontiveros , a vocal critic of the government’s antidrug campaign. In 2017, Ms. Hontiveros helped shelter underage witnesses to the murder, by police officers, of a teenage boy. Although she was acting at the request of the witnesses’ parents — who understandably did not trust the police to keep their children safe — Ms. Hontiveros was charged with kidnapping (as well as for wiretapping ).

More subtly, the administration has also used a range of tactics to subvert democratic practices, not least in the Legislature. Lawmakers who oppose the Duterte administration have seen budgets for their home districts slashed or sometimes been stripped of their membership on important select committees . The government has also manipulated the rules of procedure of the House of Representatives to ensure that the official minority bloc — which should be an important check on the executive — is mostly composed of pro-government lawmakers.

A new Congress convened on Monday morning and Mr. Duterte was scheduled to deliver his fourth State of the Nation address later in the day. Since the midterm elections in the spring, the Senate is stacked with the president’s people : They now control the super majority needed to push forward problematic polices — including amending the Constitution to grant the executive branch even more powers.

Mr. Duterte was elected very comfortably in 2016, and his approval ratings remain very high . But the people of the Philippines voted him into office so that he would help the every man and everywoman . They did not vote him into office so that he could repress the legitimate, also elected, opposition and use his brutal drug campaign to cement his grip on power.

Leila de Lima is a senator in the Philippines and a member of Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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My Views on The War on Drugs in The Philippines

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Asia commentary

Commentary: The good, the bad and the ugly of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s approach is casting aspersions on law enforcement and the Philippine justice system, says political commentator Gideon Lasco.

Activists take part in a rally after 91 people were shot dead in a week in an escalation of President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines, Aug 18, 2017. (Photo: REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao)

Gideon Lasco

MANILA: From the moment he took office on Jul 1, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made the war on drugs his top priority. 

“We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or are put, either behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish,” he declared in his first state of the nation address.

The Philippine war on drugs, however, has been marked by controversy and criticism from human rights groups, foreign governments and the United Nations.

Having called the war on drugs a policy with heavy-handed tactics that are “dangerously out of step” a few weeks ago, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights special rapporteur Agnes Callamard called for a probe into the Philippines war on drugs.

Such scathing comments beg the question of what Duterte’s war on drugs have achieved over the past year that justifies its continuation.

THE GOOD – HIGHLIGHTING THE DRUG PROBLEM

The first legacy of the war on drugs has been to shine a national spotlight on the Philippines’ drug problem.

To Duterte’s credit, his government has not shied away from inconvenient truths like the fact that the Philippines is becoming a trans-shipment point for the global drug trade, and the high number of 1.8 million drug users in the Philippines.  

Duterte has also courageously and rightfully identified the involvement of politicians in the drug trade. Long before his arrival in the national scene, government officials have been implicated in participating or protecting the drug trade, but previous presidents have turned a blind eye.

Duterte’s attention on drugs has also challenged health officials to offer rehabilitation services and even consider targeted and sustained community-based interventions. In 2016, Philippine Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial declared drug use a “public health concern”.

Though these efforts have not born significant fruit, they at least hint at openness on the part of Philippine government agencies to approach drugs in a comprehensive and open way.

A recognition of the severity of the situation in turn, is going some way in progressing the Philippine government's response to an undeniably major problem for the Philippines. Police officers have gone around communities in the Philippines with high levels of drug users and traffickers, and millions have signed up for drug rehabilitation programmes.

THE BAD – A DANGEROUS PHILOSOPHY

However, the way the Philippine government has communicated the drug problem to the public perpetuates various misconceptions that undermine efforts to solve the drug problem in an effective and sustainable way.

Duterte, for instance, repeatedly conflates all kinds of drug users - pushers, dependents, occasional users - lumping all of them together as perpetrators of violence, despite evidence that just a small fraction of drug use is problematic.

He has also made no secret of wanting to see suspects killed rather than jailed , sometimes with very little supporting evidence of their involvement in the drug trade.

Allegations of planted evidence are rife so it is not surprising that there is growing concern that the war on drugs may be used as a political tool.

Relying only on the testimony of convicted drug lords, Senator Leila de Lima - a longtime critic of Duterte’s iron-fisted policies even when he was a mayor - remains detained on charges of drug trafficking. Recently, and without providing evidence, Duterte has publicly called Iloilo Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog a drug personality and issued him a thinly-veiled death threat.

Aside from revealing a gangster leadership style rarely seen in past Philippine presidents, all these trends suggest that Duterte’s government may be using the war on drugs and the Philippine political system to deal with dissent against his administration and silence critics.

Such allegations have not only undermined his war on drugs but also cast aspersions on the Philippines’ justice system.

THE UGLY – EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS

Duterte has also taken an iron-fist approach to stamping out drug cartels, by aggressively deploying state forces in anti-drug operations around the country.

While the Philippine National Police reports over 3,000 killed in legitimate police operations, human rights groups claim the number is much larger, given that the police also report several thousands “deaths under investigation”.

There are some high-profile individuals involved, but most of the victims have come from poor neighbourhoods. One of them, 17-year-old  Kian delos Santos , elicited outrage recently as CCTV footage of him being dragged by two men emerged - contrary to the police’s account that the victim fought them.

Some would justify the war on drugs as a choice between saving drug users and saving victims of heinous crimes like rape and murder.

However, these statements already presume the guilt of all victims of the war on drugs – an unlikely scenario in light of cases like Kian’s and other minors, numbering over 50, that have been killed in the course of the drug war.

They also paint a false scenario in which Filipinos have to make a choice, when the police can and should be protecting all victims from crime and apprehending criminals to be trialed by the justice system.

Others would insulate Duterte from responsibility and blame the killings on the vigilantes - and a few corrupt policemen.

But even if we are to ignore reports of policemen staging crime scenes and being paid to kill drug suspects, Duterte’s rhetoric - which includes vowing to protect police from prosecution, and even suggesting that they plant guns if suspects have none - have doubtless enabled a culture of impunity and violence that is undermining the rule of law in the Philippines, and damaging the credibility of institutions, including the police itself.

DUTERTE CONTINUES TO ENJOY POPULAR SUPPORT

While Filipinos are increasingly concerns about the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects and are becoming fearful for their own safety, surveys show that Duterte continues to enjoy popular support. These dissonant figures belie the simplistic idea that Filipinos are uncritically supportive of the war on drugs.

Despite the intensely polarised debates, however, there is actually common ground and strong agreement within the Philippines that the drug problem needs to be addressed.

This common ground needs to be highlighted to counter the binary choices presented to people that they are either for the war on drugs or for the drug trade.

The Duterte government should also consider ramping up softer best practices that have been effective - such as Bogo City achieving "drug-free" status with zero deaths through multi-sectoral cooperation and community-based rehabilitation.

When these success stories are held against the gruesome human toll of the Philippine government's current paradigm, perhaps Filipinos will finally be convinced that instead of the failed and deadly "war on drugs", we should move towards a comprehensive, humane, evidence-based approach: One that addresses the reasons why people are using drugs in the first place.

Dr Gideon Lasco is a political commentator who writes a weekly column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. 

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Get the Backstory on Duterte’s ‘War on Drugs’ as ICC Green Lights Investigation into Philippines Killings

A still image of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte from the January 2021 FRONTLINE documentary "A Thousand Cuts."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) authorized an official investigation this week into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”: a bloody campaign that has resulted in thousands of deaths under Duterte’s administration.

Since Duterte was elected in 2016, Philippines security forces have admitted to carrying out more than 6,000 killings of alleged drug suspects , citing self-defense. Thousands of additional people have reportedly been executed by mysterious gunmen.

Based on a preliminary investigation begun in 2018 by an ICC prosecutor, the court announced Wednesday that it has authorized a full investigation, finding that “the so-called ‘war on drugs’ campaign cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation, and the killings neither as legitimate nor as mere excesses in an otherwise legitimate operation.” Instead, the announcement said, an ICC pre-trial chamber found indications that “a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population took place pursuant to or in furtherance of a State policy.”

“The total number of civilians killed in connection with the [war on drugs] between July 2016 and March 2019 appears to be between 12,000 and 30,000,” according to a report by the ICC prosecutor requesting a full investigation.

In addition to examining nationwide killings during Duterte’s presidential administration, the ICC investigation will look at killings in the Davao region from 2011 to 2016, a time period that overlaps in part with Duterte’s final stint as mayor of the city of Davao.

A spokesperson for Duterte’s administration said the government would not be cooperating with the probe, that investigators would not be allowed into the country and that the ICC does not have jurisdiction in the Philippines, Reuters reported . Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the treaty that established the ICC — based in The Hague, Netherlands — in 2018, after the court opened its preliminary examination into the killings.

Over the past several years, FRONTLINE has been chronicling Duterte’s rise, his wars on both drugs and the press, and the impacts on democracy. Revisit these collected reports — two documentaries and one podcast episode — for more context.

On the President’s Orders (2019)

“Hitler massacred 3 million Jews,” Duterte said in 2016, shortly after launching his war on suspected drug users and dealers. “Now there is 3 million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Weaving in Duterte’s own statements, this FRONTLINE documentary from Olivier Sarbil and James Jones showed how Duterte’s “war on drugs” has played out in the streets of Manila, the nation’s capital — and why citizen activists say the campaign is “clearly a war on the poor.”

Sarbil and Jones embedded with a police unit in the Caloocan district of Manila and also filmed with families of alleged victims who suspected the police of running secret death squads, despite Duterte’s vow to scale back after police were accused of killing two unarmed teens in the summer of 2017.

In a statement in response to the documentary, a Duterte spokesperson said: “Drug-related killings are absolutely not state-initiated or state-sponsored. These killings result from violent resistance on the part of those sought to be arrested by police agents” — a claim family members and human rights groups have disputed. “The president, as strict enforcer of the law, does not tolerate abusive police officers. … those who abuse their authority will have hell to pay,” the statement said.

Blood and Power in the Philippines (2019)

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast produced by Jeb Sharp, reporter Aurora Almendral investigated Duterte’s popularity within the Philippines, the events that shaped him and his rise to the presidency. Almendral began in his hometown of Davao, the largest city in the southern Philippines and where Duterte served as mayor for multiple terms spanning more than two decades.

“Duterte is credited for transforming Davao into a relatively peaceful and prosperous city,” Almendral said in the episode, but he also “became linked to a vigilante group called the Davao Death Squad, [whose] members — some police, some civilians — are accused of assassinating alleged drug dealers and other suspects. They’d ride two to a motorcycle to go hunt them down. Those methods now look like a blueprint for some of the tactics of his current drug war.”

A Thousand Cuts (2021)

In the months after Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines, journalist Maria Ressa’s staff at the independent news site Rappler investigated a slew of killings believed to be connected to his brutal war on suspected drug dealers and users. Ressa also published a series of stories examining the rapid-fire spread of online disinformation in support of Duterte, who has said journalists “are not exempted from assassination.”

As this feature-length documentary from director Ramona S. Diaz chronicled, Ressa soon became the focus of online disinformation and threats herself — and a prime target in Duterte’s war on the press. “What we’re seeing is a death by a thousand cuts of our democracy,” Ressa said in the documentary. “When you have enough of these cuts, you are so weakened that you will die.” But Ressa vowed she and Rappler would carry on in the face of online harassment and numerous court actions: “We will not duck; we will not hide. We will hold the line.”

More than 300 FRONTLINE documentaries are streaming now. Browse the collection .

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Dissonant Narratives of the Philippine War on Drugs

by Filomin C. Gutierrez

June 26, 2020

When Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency in the Philippines in July 2016, a war on drugs was immediately cascaded into Philippine communities. This campaign saw members of the Philippine National Police coaxing drug users to voluntarily surrender and pledge to cease the habit, with over a million “drug personalities” surrendering just six months into Duterte’s administration. The anti-drug campaign was popularly known as Oplan Tokhang, a portmanteau term for toktok and hangyo , which means “to knock” and “to plead,” respectively, in the Cebuano language. Since 2016, tokhang has become a euphemism for extra-judicial killing (EJK) by either the authorities or anti-drug vigilantes.

The rising death toll of the drug war drew criticism from human rights groups. Official sources reported that as of July 2019, some 5,375 drug personalities have been killed in police operations. Human rights groups estimate that the overall death toll, which includes EJKs, has reached beyond 25,000. The International Criminal Court (ICC) started investigating Duterte for crimes against humanity in February 2018. Public opinion surveys by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) in late 2019 indicated that 75% of Filipinos believe that many human rights abuses took place as a result of Oplan Tokhang.

The war on drugs generated enormous interest among Filipino social science researchers, most of whom are sensitized to the human rights perspective. Conflicting death toll estimates, along with contrasting assessments of the extent and severity of the drug problem, matched the debates surrounding the morals and politics of the anti-illegal drug campaign between the authorities, human rights groups, and experts, including social researchers.

Narratives of suffering from those arrested and widows of those who were killed compose the backdrop of a new, violent Philippine reality. This reality is attended by the paradox of hyper-stigmatization of drug use by the current political and criminal justice regime vis-à-vis the “normalized proliferation” of drugs, articulated by the term talamak (chronic), commonly used by arrested persons, media, and much of the public.

In my own studies, I struggled to make sense of the dissonant narratives of suspected drug offenders, specifically involving the stimulant methamphetamine (locally known as shabu ). I interviewed 27 men in jail, most of whom are working-class individuals in their early and middle-to-late adulthood arrested in the first year of Oplan Tokhang on drug-related charges. They claimed that they had been wrongly arrested, that police officers planted evidence, and that they were mistreated or tortured to confess their guilt. They described their plight as walang kalaban-laban (defenseless) against the police who forcefully descended into their dwellings. Despite their tragic personal plight, many of them still support Duterte’s anti-drug campaign because it represents a decisive action against a worsening drug situation that had long been ignored.

Clearly, the “drug offenders” are very much a part of the “penal populist” public that generated support for Duterte’s presidency in 2016. A moral panic about the rising number of drug addicts and unsafe neighborhoods propped up the resurgence of penal populism, a term proposed by John Pratt as an approach that adopts more punitive measures against criminality based on public sentiments rather than on empirical evidence or expert opinions. This can be observed in public opinion polls released by SWS at the end of 2019 indicating that Duterte enjoyed a net satisfaction rating of 72% from Filipinos, and his war on drugs a net satisfaction rating of 70%.

Prior to Duterte’s presidency, studies by Gideon Lasco showed that the youths of a Philippine port community used shabu as pampagilas (performance enhancer) for their work in the informal sector (e.g., vendors, porters, sex workers). Similarly, participants in my study also confessed to using shabu to regain strength from tiredness, stay awake, and take up jobs that are either hard to come by or require long unpredictable hours (e.g., truck and jeepney drivers, construction workers). They refused to be called “addicts” because, in their belief, they can stop anytime they wish, and they don’t let it become a habitual vice. That they purchase it using their own wages and not with funds derived from theft, robbery, or any other crime confers shabu the legitimacy of a consumer commodity in the open market. The scope of analysis of its use, therefore, needs to go beyond notions of leisure or retreatism and subcultural theories of addiction, and toward its function as a mainstream means to cope with the stresses of poverty and economic precarity.

Despite the participants’ defense of their drug use, the denouement of my conversations with them was their recognition that shabu is a “destroyer of families,” “a source of criminality,” “ultimately evil,” and “a national problem,” which must be eradicated. One key aspect of their narrative is that the misinformed police made a mistake in capturing them instead of targeting those who are truly guilty: addicts who commit heinous crimes to support their vice, money-hungry traffickers who exploit them, and corrupt policemen who extort money from the addicts and peddlers.

My preliminary interviews with police officers on Oplan Tokhang also suggest an experience misunderstood by human rights groups and misrepresented by the media. They spoke of their conviction in carrying out the mandate and ideals of protecting the country and its citizens from a drug menace “that does not seem to end.” While they recognize that drugs do fill a vacuum created by poverty and that drug lords economically exploit an addicted and impoverished population, they also regard drug personalities as combatants, armed with weapons, who are ready to retaliate. More importantly, they reflexively look back on Oplan Tokhang as a campaign that has exposed the “true depth of the drug problem,” and how it has “gravely corrupted the police ranks.” If a deep story – an approach used by Arlie Hochschild to capture the experience of right-wing American Republicans – can be told from the narratives of “drug offenders,” it might render a starkly different account of Philippine reality assembled from the narratives of the police.

Social science research on the Philippine war on drugs can indeed contribute to providing evidence-based policies, whether these involve the methodological expertise of quantifying addiction levels, reconceptualizing drug use typologies, or interpreting public opinion on criminality. The challenge for sociology is that it must heed caution about frameworks that offer binaries that reduce the drug question in the Philippines to a battle between the good guys versus bad guys, the addicts versus those who are not, and the good cops versus bad cops. More importantly, sociologists researching the war on drugs must be wary of privileging penal elitism, a term which Victor Shammas uses to refer to an overvaluation of scientific or expert opinion and dismissal of a public regarded as emotional, irrational, or simplistic. Such self-reflexivity then calls for sociologists to be comfortable with contesting narratives within groups of social actors and between the supposed camps of the political and moral spectrum that makes up the public.

Filomin C. Gutierrez, University of the Philippines, Philippines and member of ISA Research Committees on Sociology of Deviance (RC29), and Women, Gender and Society (RC32) < [email protected] >

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[OPINION] The ICC investigation on the drug war: What civil society can do

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

David Castuciano/Rappler

On July 18, 2023, the International Criminal Court junked the Philippine government’s appeal to stop the ongoing investigation on the extrajudicial killings that accompanied the war on drugs in the Philippines, which took place from 2011 to 2019 while the Philippines was still a state party of the Rome Statue and covered by the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

As a reaction to the adverse ruling, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has approved the recommendation of Solicitor General Meynardo Guevarra and Secretary of Justice Jesus Crispin Remulla not to cooperate with the ICC on the grounds that it does not have any jurisdiction over the Philippines and to preserve national sovereignty. The SOJ secretary vowed not to allow entry of ICC investigators. Should a warrant of arrest or summons be issued against those who are accused of committing murder and crimes against humanity, the government will not cooperate in serving these. Some members of the Senate and the House of Representatives have promised to protect those under investigation. 

The question is: what can civil society do in view of this obstruction of justice? The following are possible course of action: 

1. Promote the Supreme Court ruling published in July 2021 that declared that the government has the obligation to cooperate in the ICC judicial process that started when the Philippines was still part of the ICC. 

“Even if it has deposited the instrument of withdrawal, it shall not be discharged from any criminal proceedings. Whatever process was already initiated before the International Criminal Court obliges the state party to cooperate. Consequently, liability for the alleged summary killings and other atrocities committed in the course of the war on drugs is not nullified or negated here. The Philippines remained covered and bound by the Rome Statute until March 17, 2019.” 

This ruling affirms the Rome Statute that states that withdrawal from the ICC does stop any investigation on crimes committed when the country was still part of the ICC. President Marcos Jr. should know, since he was a signatory when the Senate ratified membership of the ICC while he was still senator. The question of sovereignty cannot be used as an excuse not to cooperate with the ICC since this is part of the obligation to respect international treaties and agreements.

This is where civil society, especially legal luminaries and groups, can challenge the government’s position before the Supreme Court.

2. Pressure independent constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on Audit as well as the Supreme Court to cooperate in the investigation especially in releasing whatever records and documents they have available relevant to the investigation.

3. Continue gathering of evidence and documentation. This also means identifying and reaching out to witnesses who can give testimony and providing them with support and sanctuary. This requires setting up safe spaces where they can give testimony (inside and outside the country). This will include providing secure environment for ICC investigators when they enter the country.

4. Help provide support and protection to human rights defenders who are engage in documentation and taking care of witnesses.

5. Organize rallies and social media campaigns that will pressure government’s cooperation in the investigation and in serving warrants of arrest and summons. It would create an impact if families of victims of EJK are in the forefront of these rallies.

6. Initiate an international campaign that promote sanctions on the Philippine government should it ignore obligation to cooperate with the ICC. This includes a campaign against the renewal of the GSP plus status for Philippine imports to the European Union. Companies will be discouraged from investing in the Philippines since it cannot be trusted to respect international agreements and treaties. 

7. Challenge in court and through public opinion any attempt to use public funds to defend those accused before the International Criminal Court.

Cooperation with the ICC investigation should not just depend on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s personal stand or that of the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General. They are bound by the ruling of the Supreme Court and the obligation of the Philippines to international treaties and agreements. Civil society has a big role to play in ensuring that that justice be done. – Rappler.com

Alphonsus P. Burgos is a human rights activist.

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