A RECENT opinion poll captures the public’s ambivalence over the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs. The sheer numbers are mind-boggling: more than 6,000 suspected drug pushers and users killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30 with the promise of eradicating the drug menace in three to six months. The President has missed his deadline, but clearly not from want of trying. The death toll so far suggests an average of 34 drug suspects killed every day.
Duterte and his police officers—recently rewarded by unprecedented, fat Christmas bonuses–vow that the bloody campaign will continue, while simultaneously disavowing that the summary executions are state-sanctioned.
We ought to be horrified—but there are no major street demonstrations; more people turned up to protest the burial of a dictator who died 27 years ago than the faceless thousands who were recently killed on the mere suspicion of using or selling drugs.
In fact, the most recent survey by the Social Weather Stations showed that 85 percent of Filipinos were satisfied with the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.
About 88 percent of the respondents also agreed that the drug problem in their communities has declined since President Duterte took office on June 30, with only 4 percent disagreeing.
But this satisfaction is a two-edged blade.
The same survey shows that a high eight out of 10 Filipinos fear they might fall victim to summary executions that have come to characterize the government’s war on drugs. Accounts in which innocent bystanders—including innocent children—were killed, or the likelihood that unscrupulous police officers can easily use the anti-drug campaign as a cover to commit murder—do nothing to bolster public confidence.
Oddly enough, the chief of the Philippine National Police, Dir. Gen. Ronald dela Rosa, seems to exhibit some of this ambivalence himself. Decked out in a Santa hat during a recent police Christmas party, Dela Rosa apologized for the killings that stem from the government’s campaign against illegal drugs.
In a speech at the PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame, Dela Rosa asked policemen to seek forgiveness from God.
“Pray for the Lord’s forgiveness for the killings. We don’t admit that we are behind them, but because of the war on drugs, many are getting killed,” he said in Filipino.
Later, in an interview, he said: “Let me be frank. While I am begging for forgiveness for what is happening right now, I am also begging your indulgence to please understand if the killings will continue.”
The plea for forgiveness seems odd—and even hypocritical.
It suggests that while the police chief is aware on some basic, human level that killing suspects without a trial is fundamentally wrong, he is willing to look the other way as long as the government is winning the war on drugs.
While this may be so, the latest opinion poll shows that Filipinos may no longer be afraid of drug pushers—they’re now deathly afraid of the police, who are duty-bound to protect them, not kill them.