Karapatan Position Paper Submitted to the
Public Hearing of the Senate Committee
on Justice and Human Rights
August 22-23, 2016 | by Cristina Palabay,
Secretary General, Karapatan
Pres. Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly stated
that one of the biggest problems in Philippine society is the proliferation of
illegal drugs and the evils that come with it. The heinousness of crimes
brought about by drug addiction is undeniable – the rapes and murders of women
and young girls, even babies and mothers, the butchered bodies, and all else
inhuman. While it is true, that this problem should be cut to the core, the
solution is not as easy as one would exterminate termites.
Karapatan Position Paper Submitted to the
Public Hearing of the Senate Committee
on Justice and Human Rights
August 22-23, 2016 | by Cristina Palabay,
Secretary General, Karapatan
Pres. Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly stated
that one of the biggest problems in Philippine society is the proliferation of
illegal drugs and the evils that come with it. The heinousness of crimes
brought about by drug addiction is undeniable – the rapes and murders of women
and young girls, even babies and mothers, the butchered bodies, and all else
inhuman. While it is true, that this problem should be cut to the core, the
solution is not as easy as one would exterminate termites.
Duterte’s crusade would have been easier if
government bureaucracy is not corrupt. Policemen are mandated to seize illegal
drugs being peddled in communities, protect the residents especially the youth
from these harmful substances, and put the dealers/suppliers to jail. But many
of them have been doing exactly the opposite.
Some elements among the police force, most
of the time in cahoots with local government officials, protect the government
bureaucrats, big syndicates and those involved down the line of the drug trade.
Why? Because they profit from the
illicit trade and are actually part of the whole racket.
After buy-bust operations when dealers or
syndicate bosses are arrested, court proceedings take years to reach the trial
phase or, with even less probability, a conviction. Drug lords influence court
decisions with guns, money and grave threats with the help of their patrons
from government. If ever arrested, prison becomes the drug lords’ den; and
worse, a satellite laboratory for illegal substances. With the right amount of
money, guns and political connections, the drug trade proliferates, whether
drug lords are behind bars or scot free.
Pres. Duterte apparently knows this, so he
took another route to solve the problem. Forcible surrender and order of battle
listing by the Philippine National Police (PNP) against suspected drug lords
and members of drug syndicates are causing nationwide outcry by the opposition
invoking due process. But what is more worrisome and truly condemnable are the
arbitrary and extrajudicial killings of small-time suspected pushers and users,
including minors, mostly from the poor sectors.
The killings are either done as punishment
in the name of Duterte’s campaign against drugs or are perpetrated to silence
those who might turn witness and expose details of the drug manufacture and
trade. Either way, the drug-related killings in poor communities have become
too rampant.
Duterte should say the word and act on it:
Stop the Killings! Otherwise, his anti-drugs quips encourage, rather than
decisively halt the rampant killings without due process of suspects in
drug-related cases. The President should prosecute and hold accountable the
perpetrators of the extrajudicial killings, including those from the police.
The illegal drugs business preys on the
large populace of the poor. Poverty makes them increasingly vulnerable to the
drug trade, many of them using drugs to temporarily escape from their
unaddressed problems of hunger, joblessness, lack of social services and of
opportunities. The easy cash that the drug trade offers is too tempting for the
hungry.
It is enraging to see that the drug business
makes profit by taking advantage of the poverty of the many, while it is the
poor person’s blood that is shed when government tries to eliminate the drug
menace. The police enjoys too much of their authority that the abuses against
civilians speak of one thing – impunity.
Enlisting the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in the anti-drugs campaign is even more alarming, given the
sordid human rights record of the military and its propensity to use the
campaign for counter-insurgency purposes. The use of the military, vigilante
groups and other mercenaries in so-called wars against drugs is a concept that
has been peddled by the United States government in countries such as Mexico
and Colombia through the Merida Initiative. It is a form of military intervention
which justifies American military and financial support for governments to
maintain and protect US political and economic influence. It has been proven
that US-funded drug wars have not eliminated the drug menace, but have
targetted the civilian population in countries struggling for change. What the
US government has so often swept under the rug is its own role in the
proliferation of the drugs through covert operations of its intelligence agency
and the military industrial complex.
Pres. Duterte’s hatred of the evils of the
drug trade may be out of his sincere concern for the people, but a purely law
enforcement method usually results in human rights violations. The drug menace
can be eliminated without curtailing the basic rights of the people, especially
of the poor. In fact, it is through upholding the rights of the people,
especially social and economic rights, that the people can repudiate the use
and trade of illegal drugs.
The government should instead strive to
improve the living conditions of the Filipinos, especially the marginalized, by
providing them secure jobs with living wages, free education and health care,
and land to cultivate. By encouraging the people to organize themselves into
unions, cooperatives, community and sectoral organizations, they will learn
more and more that united efforts bear more fruits than isolated individual
striving. It is through empowering the people and helping them provide for
their needs that they will turn away from drugs. There will be no need for them to sell drugs
for little cash.
The system that breeds the proliferation of
drugs is the same one that causes unrest among the Filipinos. Thus, it is
important that the root causes of poverty and others that give rise to armed
conflict be addressed thoroughly. The
peace process and the people’s movement for meaningful, comprehensive and
fundamental change are welcome efforts at this point.