Julita, Clarissa P.

Grade 12 ABM-Kalaw

WAR ON DRUGS
Good Enough or Too Much?

Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has
carried out a “war on drugs” that has led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date,
mostly urban poor. At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed to the Philippine
National Police. Duterte and other senior officials have instigated and incited the killings
in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity. Human Rights
Watch research has found that police are falsifying evidence to justify the unlawful
killings. Despite growing calls for an investigation, Duterte has vowed to continue the
campaign. Large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution was a marker of
Duterte’s 22-year tenure as mayor of Davao City and the cornerstone of his presidential
campaign. On the eve of his May 9, 2016 election victory, Duterte told a crowd of more
than 300,000: “If I make it to the presidential palace I will do just what I did as mayor.
You drug pushers, holdup men, and do-nothings, you better get out because I'll kill you.
This war on drugs made a great change in the Philippines for a short period of time but
as a youth of this present generation, I believe that this war on drugs is already too
much to bear by the citizens. The pain, crimes and death it has brought was already too
much.

This campaign raised by President Duterte gone overboard. It was already too
much. By the numerous killings and deaths reported, the nation was secretly filled with
horror that someday someone will knock on their door and shoot them endlessly.
Human Rights Watch field research found that government claims that the deaths of
suspected drug users and dealers were lawful, were blatant falsehoods. That research
paints a chilling portrait of mostly impoverished urban slum dwellers being gunned down
in state-sanctioned “death squad” operations that demolish rule of law protections.
Interviews with witnesses and victims’ relatives and analysis of police records expose a
pattern of unlawful police conduct designed to paint a veneer of legality over
extrajudicial executions that may amount to crimes against humanity. The
investigations revealed that police routinely kill drug suspects in cold blood and then
cover up their crimes by planting drugs and guns at the scene. While the Philippine
National Police have publicly sought to distinguish between suspects killed while
resisting arrest and killings by "unknown gunmen" or "vigilantes". Whether they kill those
suspects or not the damaged has been done. The damaged of this war on drugs
campaign has already brought impact to thousands of families and victims. The “war on
drugs” has also worsened the already dire conditions of Philippine jail facilities, including
inadequate food and unsanitary conditions. Government data indicates that the
country’s jail facilities run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, which have
a maximum capacity of 20,399, currently hold nearly 132,000 detainees, an
overwhelming majority of them awaiting trial or sentencing. The bureau attributes the
overcrowding to the arrest of tens of thousands of suspected drug users and dealers
since the anti-drug campaign began. So, all in all, this war on drugs reached its limit and
became too much to handle.
As a learner and a citizen of my country, Philippines, I am declaring this war on
drugs too much. It is already becoming toxic to filipino's lives. President Rodrigo
Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable. The mass
killings and imprisonment in the Philippines will not dry up demand for drugs: the many
people who will end up in overcrowded prisons and poorly-designed treatment centers
(as is already happening) will likely remain addicted to drugs, or become addicts. There
is always drug smuggling into prisons and many prisons are major drug distribution and
consumption spots. The illegal drugs issue in the Philippines can never be solve
through killings. As warriors for peace in the Philippines, let us be lawful. According to
Bill Hicks, it is not a war on drugs anymore, it is a war on personal freedom.