ONE out of every four Filipinos surveyed knew someone who had been summoned for “Oplan Tokhang,” the now suspended door-to-door campaign meant to convince drug users and pushers to surrender, a survey showed.
However, the results of the Third Quarter 2017 Social Weather Survey of Social Weather Stations indicated serious doubt about whether the campaign was actually netting the right people.
Of those who said they knew someone who was subjected to Tokhang, 49 percent said not all of them were addicts or pushers, and of those 2 percent said none was involved in drugs.
The survey also found “lower net satisfaction with government among those who say not all of the persons summoned by ‘Oplan Tokhang’ are drug addicts and pushers,” SWS said.
The results were from a non-commissioned poll on the government’s anti-drug campaign conducted from Sept. 23 to 27 and involved face-to-face interviews with 1,500 adults. It had sampling error margins of ±3 percent for national percentages, ±4 percent for Balance Luzon and ±6 percent each for Metro Manila, the Visayas and Mindanao.
The results indicated that, statistically, 37 percent of the adults polled adult believed police were lying about the slain suspects supposedly having fought back, 45 percent were undecided and 17 percent said they were telling the truth.
While 95 percent of the respondents said it was important to capture suspects alive, 76 percent said it was “very important” to ensure this.
Notwithstanding the growing opinion against the continued killings, the net satisfaction with the government’s war on drugs remained a “very good” +63.
Personal knowledge of someone summoned for Tokhang was highest in Metro Manila at 31 percent, followed by Balance Luzon and Mindanao with 25 percent each and the Visayas with 22 percent.
Of those who said they knew someone called for Tokhang, 36 percent said all of them were addicts or pushers and 16 percent said they did not know.
Metro Manila also had the highest proportion of respondents saying not all those summoned for Tokhang were pushers or addicts, at 50 percent, with 1 percent saying none of them were into drugs, 33 percent saying all of them were involved, and 16 percent saying they did not know.