“HOW will I succeed?”
This was the question President Rodrigo Duterte emphasized when he humbly admitted to his constituents that he cannot fulfill his promise of eradicating the drug problem in the country in just six months after assuming office.
The president said he was shocked by the magnitude of the drug menace and that the crackdown would have to continue until the end of his six-year term. Knowing that he has newfound enemies in generals, policemen and other government officials who are accused of being involved in the drug problem, Duterte vowed that a more unrelenting war on drugs will commence.
“Now, you die. If you are a mayor, a congressman, a governor, if you get killed, sorry. That is my order,” the president warned. “I hope that I can get rid of it before I go out of my office. I hope I will witness it. Dahan-dahanin ko lang ‘yan sila (I will do it slowly).”
Despite continuously drawing flak from human rights groups in the country and abroad, Duterte refused to listen to his critics and accused them of trivializing the problem.
Reports show that thousands have died since the government launched its war on drugs. However, figures from the police and civil society contradict each other. Government officials claim that only about 3,000 drug personalities have been killed in police operations, while human rights advocates have placed the death toll at around 9,000.
On Monday, Aug. 28, Duterte met with Saldy and Lorenza de los Santos, the parents of a 17-year-old boy who was killed in a police operation in Caloocan last Aug. 16.
Their son, Kian Loyd, was accused of peddling drugs and was allegedly killed in a shootout with police. The death of Kian sparked protests and renewed condemnation over the war on drugs from concerned citizens around the world.
The three police officers, who accused Kian of resisting arrest and resorted to killing the teenager, are now in police custody and will face various government agencies tasked to further investigate the incident.
For his part, Duterte promised the de los Santos couple that he would do everything to ensure an early resolution of their son’s case and to make sure that the policemen accused will be punished.
Despite efforts by Duterte to vociferously fight the drug crisis in the country, many still refuse to see its success. Because for them, guilty or not, the staggering numbers of people who have been killed also comes with growing level of violence and impunity in the country.
The gruesome photographs of blood-soaked corpses of alleged drugs suspects are constantly shown with headlines on media almost everyday. This shows how there is a level of desensitization to the violence among a certain segment of the population.
This brutal anti-drug crackdown is painstaking, and often thankless. Perhaps what it needs is to re-assess the problem and propose policy recommendations for a radically different approach—one that will not inflict fear among the citizenry but ignite civic participation instead. (AJPress)
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