What is it about?
The article discusses critically the "drug war" in the Philippines, pointing out that it is a war against the poor with impunity for state agents, essentially the Philippine National Police to kill drug suspects without legal process. President Duterte claimed that the war would be over and drugs eliminated within six months of his taking over the presidency. The number of "suspects" killed has reached about 12,000 since 1 July 2016, many by the police and many by so-called vigilantes who are either off-duty police or hitmen given names of people the police want eliminated. all has not gone well as duterte was forced to admit the police were "corrupt to the core" and took them out of the war although a month later they were put back on the job. While the war gets support from more than 80% of those polled, it is also the case that about 85% do not want the suspects killed. Duterte sees himself as a moderniser in the fashion of his hero, former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and wishes to eliminate the "undeserving poor" who are alleged to be associated with drug use-even marijuana.
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Why is it important?
The article is one of the few analyses of the drug war in the Philippines that attempts to explain President Duterte's policy of eliminating drugs and suspected drug users and dealers in violation of the rule of law as a policy based on his vision of a new Philippines, following in the footsteps of his hero, former President Marcos who had a vision of a "New Society". Currently President Duterte has had to remove the police from the war on drugs as both domestic and international pressure was building after the killings of innocent teenagers was established. Nevertheless the war will be continued, and the article may assist in the campaign to stop the killings and restore the rule of law not the gun.
Perspectives
The policy of killing "suspects" who may, or may not be, using or dealing drugs will inevitably fail and will have serious unintended consequences. while President Duterte promised to bring safety to the streets of the towns and cities, recent polls indicate that at least 75% of filipinos fear that they or a relative could be the victim of a police killing. The reputation of the police is now so poor that the President has had to bar them from further responsibility for carrying on the war, a task he has turned over to another law enforcement agency. Further, it appears that some of the killings are carried out by rival drug syndicates so the end result will not be the elimination of drugs as Duterte promised in his campaign, but stronger drug cartels and a weaker rue of law.
gill boehringer
Macquarie University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Asia-Pacific: Duterte’s drug war: Violating rights for a quick fix, Alternative Law Journal, September 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1037969x17730700.
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