Speech About War On Drugs 511z1

The war on drugs in the Philippines is leaving hundreds dead in the streets.On June 5, 2016, a month after he was elected, Duterte stood in front of national television, outlining his plan for cracking down on drug addicts.“Feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have a gun,” he said. “You have my .”Fatal force, Duterte told the crowd, was a reasonable response to drug addicts. “If he fights and he fights to death, you can kill him.”“Barilin mo [shoot him] and I’ll give you a medal,” he told a cheering crowd. “Shoot a lot and I will make you police chief,” he joked.The statement garnered international attention and condemnation from human rights groups. Critics took this as an incitement to violence. Apparently vigilantes did as well.For the vigilante who singled out Manalang, there’s one fewer alleged drug dealer on the street. The police mark the bullet casings scattered around him, photograph the crime scene, empty his pockets for evidence, set aside the blood-splattered cardboard sign, wrap his body in a blue tarp, and load him into a waiting ambulance.Someone lights a candle next to the thick puddle of Manalang’s blood on the asphalt, and one of his friends, starts up his motorcycle sidecar, still splattered with blood and drives it away.The Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading local newspaper is compiling a “Kill List” of drug-related deaths since Duterte took office. Using reports from their correspondents across the Philippines, The Inquirer has so far counted more than 600 killings since

Duterte became president — either by police in drug bust operations or by vigilantes —­ that they’ve been able to attribute the drug war.The number already represents a significant spike in violent deaths in the Philippines. However, Sara Pacia, one of the reporters behind the Kill List, says “the real number is much, much higher.”According to The Inquirer’s numbers, which are updated twice a week with fresh reports, there’s now an average of 14 drug-related deaths a day in the Philippines and on particularly bloody nights, it can add up to more than 20. Less conservative estimates by other sources put the number of drug-related deaths as high as a thousand.

Philippines’ ‘War on Drugs’ 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 7,000 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 donothings, you better get out because I'll kill you.”

The Philippines’ War on Drugs Is Really a War on the Poor Less than 50 days into the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, serious concerns are being raised over the hundreds of extrajudicial killings being perpetrated under the istration’s watch. Some have characterized the situation as a reign of terror, while Duterte himself has declared: “I don’t care about human rights.” While purportedly a war against drug dealers and s, the killings not only forgo the rule of law, but entrench disadvantage among the country’s poor.

Duterte’s inaugural State of the Nation Address reiterated the tough-on-crime rhetoric that propelled him to electoral victory. To many observers, the speech was in keeping with the president’s often meandering and contradictory public statements. Duterte said his istration will ensure that the “rule of law will always prevail,” but also threatened to put

drug offenders “below the ground.” The address was best understood as a continuation of Duterte’s simplistic notion that fighting crime means killing perpetrators.

As early as 2009, Human Rights Watch documented the activities of vigilantes dubbed the Davao Death Squad, who murdered suspects with the complicity of local officials and police in the city in which Duterte served as mayor. These killings were often perpetrated in broad daylight and the victims were mostly petty criminals, gang , and street children.

Fast forward to 2016 and the images of summary executions are again being cast against a backdrop of poverty, with the victims of Duterte’s latest sanctioned killings once more coming from the fringes of society. The key factor that has changed is that the so-called Operation Tokhang (“knock and plead”) is now being conducted on a nationwide scale.

The operation sees police officers visit suspects whose names have been drawn from lists of drug suspects provided by barangay, or village, officials. These individuals are compelled to report to their nearby police station, confess their alleged

crimes, and sign declarations pledging to mend their ways. These “surrender ceremonies” are conducted with much fanfare and media coverage, with participants labeled as offenders regardless of criminal liability actually being proven.

Duterte has simultaneously sanctioned the killing of suspects who do not participate in these processes, with the violence carried out by police and vigilante groups comprising active and retired officers, former communist guerrillas, and even gunsfor-hire. These killings have become known as “cardboard justice,” owing to suspects’ bodies being dumped alongside signs scrawled with their alleged crimes. In some cases, individuals had attended a surrender ceremony, yet were still killed.

Affluent areas—whose residents typically consume drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine rather than the poor man’s shabu, or crystal methamphetamine—are largely spared from the surrender ceremonies and the killings. Gated communities in Manila, for example, can provide certification from homeowners’ associations that they are drug-free, which is enough to dissuade police officers from pursuing Tokhang activities. Rather than encouraging vigilante justice against

them, Duterte has also granted personal audiences to drug trade figures of higher stature. The fact that of the middle and upper classes don’t suffer the consequences of the war on drugs has been key to these individuals considering the campaign as adequately restrained and lending it their political . Unaffected overseas Filipino workers have also overwhelmingly backed Duterte and his positions, and have promoted a narrative that only the tough and patriarchal leader can transform the Philippines into a prosperous country similar to their host countries. The Tokhang campaign ultimately suffers from assuming that local officials are trustworthy and that the information they provide is accurate. In fact, officials have themselves often been indicted for drug offenses, and the system in turn gives many the discretion to exact retribution on political enemies. The Philippines National Police Chief has itted there is “not enough evidence” for most of the suspects called out by Duterte, and there have been many reported cases of identified names belonging to dead or even non-existent people. Even assuming accurate information could be provided, there is a considerable risk of collateral damage from permitting lethal force against drug offenders. Police shootouts have suffered

from mistaken identification of victims and have also resulted in the deaths of bystanders. Though state-sanctioned, the Tokhang operation and the associated killings clearly contravene Article III of the Philippines’ Bill of Rights, which provides for the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. While ers of the violence may claim short-term gains, it is eroding trust between communities—particularly poorer ones—and authorities. At worst, it may embolden genuine criminal entities to escalate their own violence against ordinary citizens and security services alike. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Olayres insists that he was just a pedicab driver and had no ties to the drug trade. Duterte showed little sympathy for the grieving woman, or indeed the murdered man, in the photo. Responding to it after it had made its way to the front page of several Philippine newspapers last week, he instead used it as a warning. "If you don't want to die and get hurt, don't pin your hopes on priests and human rights (groups). They can't stop death," Duterte, the straight-talking former mayor of Davao, a restive

southern Philippines town, said last week, referring to the image. "Then you end up sprawled on the ground and you are portrayed in a broadsheet like Mother Mary cradling the dead cadaver of Jesus Christ. Well, that's very dramatic." He's doubling down on the policy, despite criticisms that his apparent for extrajudicial killings is leading the country down a dangerous, lawless path.

"Double your efforts. Triple them, if need be. We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or put behind bars -- or below the ground, if they so wish," he said in his July 25 State of the Nation speech. On Wednesday, he added in a speech that the reason he won by a "landslide" was the "sense of security" that he offers. He said that the impact of drugs in the community made him "really angry. I've always been angry, even as mayor." Adding that "it's a war, not a crisis," he asked, "why should these people live?" Despite the bullish tone, a government spokesman insists that the Duterte istration is against any form of extrajudicial killings.

"We do not condone these acts," Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Martin Andanar said. "(The) government is here to save our people from the drug menace and punish the offenders, including the big-time ones. The PNP (Philippines National Police) continues to investigate situations involving vigilante killings and operational aspects where deaths are reported."

Gunned down and left to die in the street: A year after the Philippines began its war on drugs which has claimed 5,000 lives, how one woman's senseless murder still has the power to shock the country Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines a year ago, promising a crackdown on drugs He has instructed police to shoot dealers on sight, and encourage vigilantes to kill s living among them Since then more than 5,000 people have died in drug-related killings, though 8,000 more are unexplained One unexplained killing is that of Kristita Padual, 29, who was shot dead as she sat outside a nightclub WARNING: Graphic content By Chris Pleasance for MailOn

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