What are your personal insights about the efforts of our government regarding drug abuse?

Drug abuse and drug trafficking are some of the most daunting issues in our country. Because of this,
president Duterte placed an emphasis on eradicating the drug issue in the Philippines through any
means necessary. He encouraged the public and police force to kill individuals involved with drugs,
which led to large-scale extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and drug addicts. In my opinion, it
is morally and legally unacceptable as it undermines the victim’s human rights and lacks any concrete
guidelines to justify their death. Innocent lives were lost because of this operation since the police force
had liberty to kill them, even without sufficient proof. Thousands were recorded as “deaths under
investigation” to cover up their mistakes. There are other ways that the government could have
approached the situation. I think that killing the drug addicts is unlawful because the primary target of
their efforts should be the drug dealers since without them; drug addicts would not have access to
recreational drugs in the first place. Instead of killing all of them at the risk of taking innocent lives, drug
dealers should have been jailed, and drug addicts should have been placed in rehabilitation programs
under the strict guidance of the Department of Health. Moreover, there should be guidelines on how
they could be proven guilty. For instance, they may be proven guilty if two consecutive drug tests show
positive signs of drug abuse. In summation, I consider the Philippines’ ‘War on Drugs’ as a failure and a
crime against human rights. As I said, there are other ways to address the Philippines’ drug issue instead,
they (Philippine government) chose to kill all suspects, innocent or not, as a means to an end. It would
be interesting to see how the next president would try to combat the pervasive issue of drugs in our
country.