With drug killings at 293 from July 1 to 24, according to the Philippine National Police, the state-sanctioned violence that executes suspected drug pushers and users has and continues to cycle to frightening levels.
Despite citizens, non-governmental organizations, activist groups, and the Church calling for a halt to the appalling murders done without due process, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said in his State of the Nation Address the continuation of the drug war he launched, and ordered the police to ramp up their efforts to double, even triple, the present level. In previous addresses to the public, he has urged communist rebels to kill drug traffickers and ordinary folk to kill drug users.
Many of those committing murders have thus been emboldened to commit their crimes under the blanket of the immunity granted to drug warriors and the impunity they flaunt as a consequence.
My daughters, both college students who take public transportation to and from school, describe an atmosphere of fear that has come over many young people like themselves. They are afraid of being mistaken for junkies or pushers and summarily killed, just as that criminology student and Ateneo teacher were, or be caught in the crossfire, as at least one woman was.
Thus the drug war being waged in Manila streets is unjust and unfair. No due process, innocents are swept up in the fatal net along with those presumed guilty. Human rights are being violated.
And it is the poorest who are treated this way; the elite and wealthy are untouchables, as always, with the police foiled by a simple expedient of a letter from the posh subdivisions forbidding them entrance. Again, one law for the rich, another for the poor. Where is the change here?
It is the abject, grinding, hopeless poverty prevalent in our country that drives many pushers to the drug trade and users to the numbing effects of hallucinogens. As of the first semester of 2015, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, 26.3 percent—more than a fourth—of the population live below the poverty line, if you call that living. This level is roughly the same as Haiti’s, according to the Philippines Development Plan 2011-2016.
Reduce poverty by providing more jobs, social welfare and health services, and education —this will help give most Filipinos a chance to surface from the swamp of poverty. Give due process to drug suspects and rehabilitate users. There is always hope for redemption in everyone.
In his first Sona, Duterte brought up rehabilitation of addicts, with plans to create an inter-agency committee to handle the drug menace and use military camps to accommodate drug users for rehabilitation as rehab facilities are set up around the country. Military reservists are to help with information dissemination. Funds would be allocated for this particular endeavor.
Actually, funds for this purpose have been collected for decades. For instance, the three horseracing clubs—Manila Jockey Club Inc., Philippine Racing Club Inc., and Metro Manila Turf Club, Inc., are, under their respective franchise laws, obliged to provide 25 percent of their breakage (fractions of less than 10 centavos eliminated from the dividends paid to the winning tickets) “for the rehabilitation of drug addicts as provided in Republic Act No. 6425” (The Dangerous Drugs Act). The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office also allocates an amount from its unclaimed and forfeited Sweepstakes and Lotto prizes to the Dangerous Drugs Board as a mandatory contribution. There might be other agencies and bodies also providing funds for this purpose.
With these resources, we are on our way to establishing the rehab centers that Duterte spoke of.
Rehabilitation, rather than summary execution and the rule of law, is the way to treat drug offenders. Our country doesn’t even have a death penalty, so the killings are clearly illegal and a violation of human rights.
My objection to this drug war does not extend to Duterte’s beneficial plans and projects. I admire the sagacity and energy of our new president, and his sense of humor; and I too, as we all, want an end to the destructive and negative effects of drugs on our society, but not this way.
Not this way.
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