MANILA (AsiaNews): Nearly 13 months after he took office, Philippine president, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., delivered his second State of the Nation Address [SONA] on July 24, saying he wanted to put a “new face” on the government’s war on drugs by focusing on rehabilitation.
The drug war, which began under Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, has left countless victims dead or scarred for life, especially among drug addicts and small dealers.
According to official figures, almost 7,000 people have died in the anti-drug campaign, including 350 since the start of 2023. Independent sources put the number at twice, perhaps three times as many. Overall, 350,000 people have been arrested since Duterte’s war on drugs began on 1 July 2016.
Marcos said that the anti-drug crackdown must be accompanied by major efforts to rehabilitate addicts. He said taking a hard line against drug dealers and traffickers is not enough, but that action against elements within the government apparatus, who have furthered drug addiction, especially among the most disadvantaged groups of the population, is required.
He had hinted at this back in January, when a thousand police officers were asked to resign for involvement in the multibillion dollar drug business.
Although it is not known how many actually left, Marcos Jr. announced that he had accepted the resignation of three police generals and 15 high-ranking police officers.
The government’s “new course” did not impress human rights groups, who fear that it will be ineffective in preventing drug abuse and prosecuting those responsible, but will simply boost repression, covering up summary executions and brutality by security forces in a climate of impunity.
Cristina Palabay, a member of Karapatan, a human rights alliance, shares this fear. For her, “The supposed new face of his [Marcos’s] anti-narcotics campaign is merely a rehash of tired old PR lines.”
It stands for “nothing in the context of the continuing EJKs [extrajudicial killings] in his drug war, and his disinterest and even contempt for justice for the victims during the past administration.”
