Hazel Gayle C.

de Perio
Eng 10: Academic Essay 2
The Unwinnable War: Why Duterte’s War on Drugs is Bound to Fail
Ma’am Maricris M. Castaño

“No drug addicts, no problem.” This is the tenet which President Duterte, along with a

majority of Filipinos, has come to believe in the execution of the bloodiest and most

controversial approach there is in addressing the present illegal drug problem in the country.

Every day, reports of drug-related killings of men and women, executed by vigilantes, the

police or unidentified suspects, have become a blinding norm which passes through the eyes

of the whole nation. With the hopes of achieving a safer, drug-free and a more progressive

Philippines, the Filipino has come to condone these violent, inhumane and barbaric acts,

likely bound to fail as suggested by the fate of many countries who resorted to the

treacherous road of violence and impunity against drugs.

"The President will go down in history as a hero," says Jr de Guzman, as he justifies

his avid support to the President and his war on drugs. He says that if the President does not

fight it, more innocent people will die (Quiano). In the last 2016 elections, Jr, along with

16,601,996 other Filipinos, has displayed his massive support in electing Rodrigo Roa

Duterte, a politician who has been vehemently vocal with his intent to eradicate drugs in the

country, and consequently, in his belief, drastically decreasing crime. Thus, the all-out war

against drugs began which employed aggressive and systematic means to achieve its goals.

One of which is the Oplan Tokhang.

Oplan Tokhang or “knock and plead,” is a program employed by the Philippine

National Police which involves going to the homes of suspected drug users, usually in the

slums, and inviting them to accompany the authorities to the barangay hall (McKirdy).
Surrenders are then asked to sign an affidavit before undergoing a series of interviews with

the police. In just a few weeks of its implementation, voluntary surrenders have reached well

over half a million, which the administration deemed to be a sign of its efficacy (McKirdy).

However, human rights groups and advocates see this program as ‘warrantless arrests,’ which

violates the people’s bill of rights, since suspects who do not have legal representation are

made to sign documents that could incriminate themselves (McKirdy).

With the Philippine National Police (PNP) spearheading the drug war as tasked by

the president himself, arrests of suspected drug users and pushers, have become expedient

which increased not only the imprisonment of drug suspects, but also the deaths thereof.

According to data given by the PNP, the number of casualties of the said war has climbed to

7,000, 2,555 of whom were killed in police operations and 3,603 of whom remain

uninvestigated (Bueza). The ‘shoot to kill’ policy commanded by the president himself,

heightened the inclination of the police to kill and condemn without due process, resorting to

the nonchalant justification for the deaths of many as ‘nanlaban’. With the amplification of

police’ power also came reports of police abuse, where the youth and innocent have already

become victims, and has begun to rattle the country’s moral foundations and beliefs.

Kian Delos Santos, a grade 11 student, was accused of opening fire to cops, causing

the police to retaliate; thus, killing him. However, official investigations tested him negative

on the paraffin test which refuted the claim of the police (Talabong). It was determined that

Kian was shot dead in the head while in a fetal position by a Caloocan police officer and his

men, rendering him powerless against these authorities. The National Bureau of Investigation

has then laid a verdict stating Kian was murdered and “killed without mercy” (Gavilan). Kian

is just one among the cases of 54 children killed by police and unknown killers since July last

year, where most of them were “shot at the company of adults who were targets of

operations” (InterAksyon). Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre dismissed these cases into
mere “collateral damage,” stating how these deaths are an inevitable part of the “cleansing”

process. “"Kapag giyera, hindi mo maiiwasan ang collateral damage  (Any war has collateral

damage). And I'm sorry to say, that could be an adult or a child," he said (Buan).

These recent cases of abuse by the police has influenced the president in suspending

the role of the PNP in his drug war , ordering the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency

(PDEA) to be the sole agency to conduct the anti-drug operations of the government

(Inquirer.net). However, a month after such order was released, recent reports foresee the

intent of the president in returning the lead to PNP (Romero). This goes to show how the war

still persists, and will continue to do so as long as Duterte remains in the presidential seat.

“The fight will be unrelenting….The fight will not stop until those who deal with it

[drugs] understand that they have to stop because the alternative is either jail or hell,” Duterte

said in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA). It is without doubt, that the war on

drugs is the stronghold of the president. It is the main ideal that invoked the trust of millions

of Filipinos which sat him to power. He believes that this bloody and pragmatic means is the

ultimate solution in ending the drug menace in this country; and sadly, majority of Filipinos

seem to think so too. However, many countries who have employed like schemes, be it in

Asia or even in Western parts of the world, were proven to have failed in reaching their

primary goal which is to eradicate drugs.

Thailand is one country which has employed a scheme similar to that of the

Philippines’ war on drugs. Waged in the early 2000s by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra,

Thailand’s war on drugs resoundingly mirrors that of our country’s which holds potential in

enlightening the government of the political and social consequences of using brute force and

violence in combating the drug system in the name of controlling crime.

 Just as how Duterte received landslide affirmation from the Filipinos, Shinawatra

gained widespread support and popularity from his countrymen, allowing him to take hold of

his country’s intense and systematic drug problem. As Thailand suffers from porous, remote,

and poorly controlled borders, the country became one of the main transit points for drugs

destined for countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania, which intensified drug-use

starting in the 1950s (Windle). What alarmed the Thai political elites however, is the

proliferation of the use of methamphetamines in the 1990s, known locally as ya ba, which

induces the manifestation of violent behavior in chronic abusers of this drug (Center for

Substance Abuse Research). The rising use of this drug among the youth, where 12.4% of

students surveyed in secondary and tertiary education were discovered to be either using or

selling drugs (Global Security), caught the attention of key political figures, particularly King

Bhumibol Adulyadej and his council, which made the issue gain enough traction for

government action to ensue. Thailand’s war on drugs was executed through a collaboration

between the local governors and the police officers, where blacklists were made by

government officials that lead to arrests, and in many occasions, extra-judicial killings. To

make matters worse, police success was heavily defined by the district police’s kill body

count which reinforced the existing hierarchy already prone to abuse and corruption (Dancel).

According to Global Security, the claimed success of Thailand’s war on drugs was

short-lived. As the prime minister’s campaign focused on the street-level users and petty drug

peddlers, considered as “small fishes,” rarely targeting the drug lords and the sources of drugs

itself, the campaign was not able to reduce cross-border trafficking nor was it able to attack

the drug trade’s higher elements (Global Security). Moreover, it was reported that profitable

drug routes from major border sources such as Myanmar remained to be intact, where

traffickers have simply changed routes or stored their products in border areas waiting to be

shipped safely. Aside from this, numerous human rights violations have been proven to be
true by official investigations, stating that out of the 2,819 people killed in the drug war,

1,370 were indeed related to drug dealings, while 878 of them had nothing to do with drugs at

all, along with the 571 people who were killed without any apparent reason (Human Rights

Watch).

Aside from Thailand, countries in the western part of the world such as Colombia and

Mexico have also long instigated their wars on illegal drugs similar to the unrelenting means

employed by the Philippines and Thailand, only to see it fail decades after their

implementation. Colombia, one of the frontlines in the global war on drugs for the past 30

years, remains to be the world’s largest producer of cocaine (Brodzinsky). As the government

hunts and chases down big drug syndicates in order to entirely cease the production of coca

leaves, small drug groups sprout in turn to maintain the market (Canoy), like persisting weeds

the government cannot seem to kill. As Hernando Zambrano, a drug policy expert says,

"Within the society of chasing criminals, some studies prove that it [Colombia’s war on

drugs] was extremely inefficient. You can have local victories but the global business is

there, and it's still gonna be there unless we change our perspective (qtd in Canoy)."

Mexico, home to the largest foreign suppliers of heroin, methamphetamines, and

cocaine to the United States, has also been waging its bloody war against drugs since 2006,

under the presidency of Felipe Calderon (Lee and Renwick). However, even after more than a

decade of the said war, drug production and violence induced by drug cartels continue to rage

in the country. Kidnapping and extortion became more rampant as criminal organizations

relied on these measures to supplement their incomes (Hope). In addition, homicide

occurrences rose to nearly twice as many as the predecessor’s time in office, where 120,000

homicides were registered over Calderon’s term (United Nations Office on Drugs and

Crime).
 As seen in the experience of these countries, the war on drugs is not a fresh, effective,

and revolutionary campaign at all, contrary to what many Filipinos believe and hope for. It is

a far overused ideology which thrives on man’s beastly instincts of “kill or be killed.” It

pushes our humanity backwards, where we resort to brute violence instead of implementing

democracy and reason which we are gifted with.

President Duterte stresses in many of his speeches about the significance of this war

in creating a better Philippines for the future generations of Filipinos. He says, and I quote,

“But we will have to fight for the country for the tomorrow of our children. Hindi natin

pwede itong ipasa sa kanila eh. Kawawa. Kawawa ‘yang mga anak ninyo. Pati pamilya natin,

mga kapatid mo, (“But we will have to fight for the country for the tomorrow of our children.

We cannot pass this to them. It’s a pity. Your children are pitiful. Even our families, your

siblings.”). No matter how enchanting flowery words smell, of our purest hopes and dreams,

at the back of our hearts and minds, we know and feel that the stench of blood and decaying

flesh persists. The irony of this administration and the support it begets is that it clings on our

humanity while concurrently takes it away, blinding the Filipino with tried schemes shown to

fail. With all these, it is indeed a sad sight, to see Filipinos be like soldiers sent to a battle

they are set to lose.