When Rodrigo Duterte ran for the presidency last year, he focused his campaign on the eradication of the narcotics trade and illegal drug use in the Philippines. After all, he explained, the drug menace is the root cause of crime in the country.
The electorate took Duterte on his word and elected him with an overwhelming mandate.
Duterte kept his promise. Upon assuming the presidency, he embarked on a relentless campaign against drug syndicates, drug pushers, drug users, and coddlers of drug addicts. Soon enough, the number of narcotics-related arrests increased geometrically, so much so that the government had to construct additional detention and rehabilitation centers just to accommodate those caught in the anti-narcotics dragnet. Stubborn drug dealers who refused to surrender to the police authorities were gunned down.
Precisely because the Duterte administration demonstrated that it was very serious in ridding the nation of the drug menace, many drug users all over the country voluntarily turned themselves over to police authorities.
Meanwhile, the arrests continued, and the death toll relating to the anti-drug offensive continued increasing.
As expected, anti-administration politicians quickly denounced the intensity and speed by which Duterte carried out his anti-narcotics campaign. Families of those who were killed in drug raids and similar police operations joined the bandwagon and score the President, accusing him of violating human rights.
While Duterte’s critics focused on those killed in the anti-drug operations mounted by the police, they were conveniently silent on the number of police officers killed or injured by known or suspected drug lords who preferred to put up a fight instead of surrendering to the authorities.
Seeing through the self-serving concerns of his critics, President Duterte rejected their protestations. He explained that the war against narcotics had to be continuing and relentless precisely because the drug lords are ruthless and will not hesitate to kill anybody who gets in their way. He also pointed out that the illegal drug trade has destroyed the social fabric of the Filipino family, and mortgaged the future of many bright, young Filipinos.
In addition, Duterte asserted that his anti-drug war is an act of self-defense, to preserve the nation against the worsening drug menace stalking the country. He stressed that it his duty to protect the Filipino people, the youth in particular, who are the future of the nation.
President Duterte was likewise frank enough to announce what many already knew but still refused to accept—that many drug addicts are beyond rehabilitation because the illegal drugs they have been using, shabu for instance, has effectively destroyed their brains and, consequently, their capability for rational thinking and behavior.
Despite the President’s explanation, his critics continued denouncing him.
Soon enough, self-styled human rights “advocates” from both the United Nations and the European Union entered the picture and denounced Duterte as well. For them, the anti-drug war launched by Duterte in the Philippines will not work and will only create needless deaths.
Instead of an all-out war on drugs, the EU suggested that Duterte establish “safe consumption sites,” or clinics where drug addicts can get their fix for free. They said that this was done in Vancouver, Canada, something which they touted earlier as a success story.
President Duterte dismissed the EU suggestion as an idiotic idea, and said the EU was unaware of the realities in the Philippines. Duterte emphasized that it was foolish, even downright ridiculous, to give out narcotics to drug addicts at public expense when many Filipinos are starving and do not have access to sufficient health care.
What the EU conveniently failed to mention was that the Vancouver experiment it cited did not reduce crime in Vancouver, and that observers believe that it contributed to the blight now plaguing the city.
The EU suggestion sounds like a proposal which Leni Robredo, the purported vice president of the nation, made earlier this year. She suggested that the Philippines follow the example of Portugal where narcotics use is no longer a criminal offense. Good heavens!
A few months ago when Duterte vowed to sustain his anti-narcotics campaign, he warned that drug users are inclined to commit other crimes. He also warned that drug addicts have a penchant for forcing their way into private homes and commit rape and murder in the process.
Sadly, Duterte’s warning proved chillingly prophetic.
The news media recently reported that an entire household in Bulacan was massacred by at least three men who were high on drugs. The gang killed five family members, including three children aged one, seven and 11. The mother and grandmother were raped and slaughtered with no less than 46 stab wounds.
Interviewed by the news media right after they were arrested by the police, one suspect admitted that the massacre was just a “trip,” owing to their use of prohibited drugs. Good grief! Hell is too nice a place for these criminals!
Despite the sorrow and pain the Bulacan massacre has caused to the relatives of the victims, it has at least proven true what President Duterte had been warning about all along—that drug addicts are certainly inclined to commit other crimes. Perhaps this stark reality, a massacre of the most beastly kind, will wake up the EU human rights advocates, all of whom have been criticizing Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, to the shocking reality that fighting the drug menace in the Philippines will take more than the kid gloves approach they have been repeatedly suggesting.
Now that the Bulacan massacre is a reality, where are those EU human rights advocates now? What do those politicians from the Liberal Party, Leni Robredo included, who have done nothing but criticize the Duterte administration, have to say about the link between drug use and heinous crimes? It’s a good thing President Duterte paid no attention to them.