In our status qou, the war on drugs campaign are still ongoing amidst of pandemic until

the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte ends for this incoming 2022. In which that

resulted in the killings of many people that includes alleged drug suspects, drug seller, and even

innocent ones were affected by the mess that the government implemented during the buy-

bust operation. Wherein, extra judicial killing means the execution done by the state and are

authorized to do such inhumane acts without undergoing legal process, (“Combating injustice in

the Arab World,” n.d.). The UN estimated for about many thousands of people that it might

reached 25,000 have killed during the war on drugs campaign in the Philippines, where there

seemed “unwillingness to investigate” to the said campaign according to Shamdasani (2020), a

Human Rights Officer. She added that the drug suspects were being “red tagged” and as they

were caught, they died eventually. Also, they examined 25 police reports and the results

claimed that the police planted guns on the drug suspects to make it looks like a self-defense

for the police officers. They said that since they have the evidence and it came out that the

serial numbers of the gun that were planted to the drugs suspects are the same, and that’s

what makes it very suspicious. The UN Human Rights Chief officer, Bachelet (2020) stated that,

“People who use or sell drugs do not lose their human rights” and so, they didn’t deserve to be

killed as they have the rights to defend themselves from the accusations as it is in the 1987

Constitution of the republic of the Philippines Article III Bill of rights section 1 stated that “no

person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor shall any

person be denied the equal protection of the laws”, and in section 2 “…no search warrant or

warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the

judge...” It is indeed very brutal of them, that’s why they must stop it and respect the rights of
the accused and value each and everyone’s lives. How many more lives we will risk? For me, I

definitely cannot afford to lose more lives in this brutal killings and as what Vice-President

Lenny Robredo said that we must “stop killing of the innocent” and she criticized President

Rodrigo Duterte of his anti-drugs campaign that made him upset. After he won the election in

2016, he said that the Philippines became dependent on the buying and selling of illegal drugs

that’s why he makes a campaign in opposition to “illegal drug personalities”. Mr. Salvador

Panelo, the president’s spokesperson, told the BBC news that it is “not the intention of the

government to kill”, but President Rodrigo himself said that he wants to kill those people who

are involved on drugs.

There’s still confusion as to how many people died during the said campaign, since there

was disparity to the number of deaths because in June 2019, the government released the

number of deaths about 5,526 and on the other hand, in the same month, the former police

chief said that the number of deaths was at 6,700. Then, the president’s spokesperson said that

it was a miscalculation. The country’s Commission on Human Rights (CHR) took a guess for

approximately 27,000 number of deaths during the war on drugs campaign as of December

2018, but in March 2019, the police said that there were over 29,000 number of deaths, as he

told it to the local media which is the Rappler, (Johnson & Giles, 2019). The ICC (International

Criminal Court) initiate to have “preliminary examination” in February 2018 to investigate the

war on drugs campaign here in the Philippines but, in March 2018, president Rodrigo Duterte

take back his permission to let the ICC do the investigation which made it looks fishy but

thankfully, the withdrawal became effective on March 17, 2019 and did not remove the power

of the ICC and let them investigate over the issue about the war on drugs that leads to
extrajudicial killing here in our country, (Philippines: Landmark ICC investigation, 2021).

Hopefully, we will get the exact number as to how many people died during the war on drugs

campaign, for us to attain justice and fairness we deserve.

Analysis

The said issue can link to the Utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill which is more on

qualitative view and believes that an act is morally right if it produces greatest pleasure or

happiness to the greatest number of people. An act is immoral if it produces more pain than

pleasure to the greatest number of people. Even though the action is immoral, but as long as it

produces maximum benefits to many people it is definitely moral for him. Extrajudicial killings

reached the estimated number of deaths for about 25,000 according to UN article 2020, and

our current population is 111,097,672 based on the latest data of Worldometer as of July 18,

2021. If that’s the case, killing drug addicts, drug sellers, and even the alleged suspects and

innocent ones during the buy-bust operation is morally right since the greatest number of our

population benefited from it. Even though many died, but is for the greater good which is to

really put an end to the addiction of drugs and many people benefited from it. Since the

percentage of drug users became lower for about 2.05 percent lower than 5.3 % in 2018,

(World Drug Report, 2020).

I can also relate the issue to social contract theory by Jhon Locke as he sees human

nature more favorable and claim that people are morally good, and have complete freedom

and live their lives peacefully. For Jhon Locke’s Natural Rights of Citizens believes that people

should grant limited powers only to a government and give up some of their freedom in order
to preserve their natural rights which he describes it as life, liberty, and property. As we have

our natural rights, we cannot kill or harm each other, we cannot subjugate our fellow human

beings, and we cannot steal from each other. We all have these three equal rights and we

should respect it. The role of the ruler is to make judgement whether someone violated other

people’s rights. By that, killing people means we violated other people’s natural rights, and if

we do that, we should accept the punishments. Here, killing is strictly prohibited and we should

not tolerate the intolerant. If our ruler does not do its job which is to maintain a safety

environment for us to live in, we, people have the right to overthrow President Duterte, and

elect new president who will lead us justly. Sadly, it looks like we can’t impeach him, even

though the law maker Mr. Gary Alejano filed an impeachment complaint but the majority of

committee members voted to put it in the trash and let President Rodrigo Duterte to continue

his term, (Petty, 2017). But we can’t just let him abused his power and trampled on our rights.

We should stand us one and fight for human rights.

Natural Law by Thomas Aquinas is somehow correlate to the issue, as for him, an act is

morally right if it is done in accordance with the moral law. Which the moral law comes from

God’s eternal law or the divine law which is to do good and avoid evil. We must follow our

conscience in doing an action and if it is inclined to the three-fold natural inclination of the

human person which are; self-preservation, here we must protect and take care of ourselves

and we should not harm ourselves. Just dealing with others, means we must respect others as

much as we respect ourselves, and propagation of human species, means we should only do sex

for having the intention of reproduction and not just for mere sexual desires. If one of the thee

natural inclinations of the human person is violated, then an act doesn’t obey conscience and
means you are doing immorality. That’s why extrajudicial killings are definitely immoral since it

violated the first of the three natural inclinations of the human person which is the self-

preservation. We don’t have the rights to kill and harm others since it is in the 10

commandments of God instead, we should live a more fulfilling life. Lastly, we must stop doing

unlawful acts, and what’s the point of having this war on drugs campaign if it doesn’t resolve

the problem, it just adds fuel to the fire.