FOLLOWING outrage from people coming from different parts of the world over the death of 17-year-old Kian De Los Santos and thousands more in the hands of the police, President Rodrigo Duterte finally admitted in a press conference on Monday, August 21, that there may have been abuses in his administration’s war on drugs. The president said he would not interfere in the investigation and if there would be charges filed against the policemen.
For many of Duterte’s critics, Kian’s death is indefensible, and that Duterte’s own rhetoric and marching order may have emboldened the corrupt and evil-spirited to use this as a license to kill mercilessly without regard to the truth, due process, and human rights.
International publication Forbes Magazine wrote that Duterte is fighting the wrong war, contending that the Philippines’ big enemies are corruption and poverty, not drugs.
“They’re killing democracy and innocent people, and in the process unsettling financial markets. And they’re not touching the corruption and poverty that pushes people into the drug trade,” the article stated on August 19, 2017.
The New York Times (NYT) published an article on August 23, 2017 that said Kian’s death “had an effect that no other police killing has: The Senate, though dominated by allies of the president, has opened an investigation.”
The NYT article further stated that “these developments have critics of Mr. Duterte’s drug war cautiously optimistic that the Philippine public, which has been broadly supportive of the crackdown, is starting to see it differently.”
While Filipinos in America generally condemn the killing, one Fil-Am community leader urges the public to look at the big picture in evaluating Duterte’s war on drugs.
Atty. Arnedo Valera, chair of the U.S. Pinoys for Real Change, shared with me the group’s defense of Duterte’s policy and program to solve the drug menace in the Philippines:
“The War on Drugs is about saving the lives and the future of the next generation . It is a bold and decisive policy to eradicate this scourge of humanity that operates not only within the Philippine geographical boundaries but it is a global menace of geometric proportions affecting the human race.
Pres. Duterte has expressed moral outrage and anger you can imagine on Kian’s killing. And police accountability on such horrendous police brutality upon full and objective investigation must be made. He will not condone police abuses. The main order for the police is to do what is right and legal in the strict enforcement of our criminal laws.
Beyond the President’s “street language” to instill fear to the enemies of the state is ti consistently and relentlessly pursue this to its end. What the police is emboldened to do is to carry and execute our criminal laws strictly to the fullest and not to engage in what has become a rhetorical echoing that our police force cannot be trusted and are presumably killers going to the streets in a killing spree.
Our call is for all sectors to unite in this drug war. If you have a solution and other alternatives in solving this drug pandemic, then we need to convey it. These non state actors that include drug lords, cartels, drug users/pushers, police scalawags, riding in tandem and all vigilantes are fully accountable of their actions and justice meted out. Blaming the President and the entire government of all the killings and calling for the stop of the drug war is simply reinforcing the narrative these drug groups and personalities wish to push. It is a weak posture of solving the drug problem.
As Cardinal Tagle recently recognized, we as Christians and as a people should be part of the solution. And this is what our government wanted to do.
Kian’s case in all indications is a police abuse. Pres. Duterte recognized that as he expressed his anger and cursing that such kind of abuse will not be tolerated. Kian does not deserve to die like that. There must be full investigation, prosecution whenever appropriate and punishment meted out.
The rule of law is the cornerstone of criminal law enforcement. Right now, police internal affairs are being strenghtened to get rid of police abusers, scalawags and the corrupt who engage in drug dealing.
When the President curses and expresses in the strongest terms that he will strictly enforce our criminal laws, it does not destroy the presumption of innocence under our Constitution . The principles of checks and balances among the three branches of our government remain intact and fully functioning if there should be abuses by the executive branch in the strict enforcement of our criminal laws. The President has repeatedly stated that he has zero tolerance on this matter.
Similar to the U.S., the drug problem in the Philippines is an epidemic where strict law enforcement policy and rehab/ treatment policies must be combined to save our country from becoming a full blown narco state and ensure hope for the future of the young generation. When we blame the President, our police and our military for all the killings nationwide, we are not only unfairly presuming that our government and police are killers who are out there with orders to kill anyone involved in drugs. But as I have repeatedly stated, we are in fact destroying the basic notion of accountability of non state actors like drug lords, drug syndicates, dealers, the poor individuals serving as willing pawns of these powerful drug syndicates. Those in the lower chain of command who wanted to earn quick cash to feed their family and working religiously with these drug lords are sacrificial lambs whose lives become cheap and dispensable.
In our own backyard, it is important to underscore what U.S. Atty General Jeff Sessions said in his address to the assembly of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) last July 11, “Drug abuse has become an epidemic in our country claiming more than 62,000 lives lost in 2016 alone due to drug overdose. (1,200 lives lost per day). He noted that drug abuse as a problem is not only a concern about treatment but law enforcement. He also acknowledged that drug trafficking and drug problem in the U.S. is inherently a “violent business”, where there is a need of strict law enforcement polucy which the U.S. currently lacks.
The Philippines faces a very unique situation in terms of strict enforcement in its drug war. The enemies are even more powerful than our police forces in terms of weapons and communication technology. It mirrors partly drug wars in Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador. In Mexico alone, last June, more than 2,000 were killed in legitimate police operations and raids (2000 plus in one month).
Pres. Duterte has adopted a bold, decisive and strict enforcement of its domestic criminal laws to combat and eradicate the drug problem nationwide under the rule of law.
Again, there are no state sanctioned killings in this drug war. We have hundreds if not thousands of police and military who received training in the U.S. What we need is to help strenghten our law enforcement institutions, the police and our military. They are our ordinary heroes and heroines who save lives on a daily basis and secure peace and protect the integrity of our nation. We can still improve and strengthen our police by reorienting them once again on accountability and mechanics of the rule of law. It is an extremely difficult task, but hope always springs eternal.”
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
