"And we may even see an escalation in the next few months."
"And we may even see an escalation in the next few months."
The Philippine National Police recently reported that it had conducted 203,715 anti-illegal drug operations nationwide from July 2016 to May 2021, where a total of 293,841 drug suspects were arrested.
The PNP also said it confiscated a total of P59.93-billion worth of illegal drugs, including P49.31-billion worth of crystal meth or shabu in their anti-drug operations.
Moreover, it said, a total of 22,093 barangays have been declared drug-free.
The report skipped the data on how many drug suspects have been killed in police operations. But we know that already: between July 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2020, the official government figures list 6,011 deaths in anti-drug operations.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), however, found that the figure as of March 2020 was at least 8,663, while other human rights organizations have pegged the number at over 20,000.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also reported that after five straight years of a relentless, all-out campaign that has left thousands of ordinary Filipinos dead and the rule of law in tatters, shabu “remains the main drug of concern in the Philippines.”
The UNODC report concluded that despite the COVID-19 mobility restrictions, total seizure of crystal meth in 2020 even exceeded the quantity recorded in 2019, proving that the illegal drug trade remains alive and well despite self-congratulatory claims to the contrary.
PNP Chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, reacting to a study led by former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus that was conducted by the Ateneo School of Government, has disputed the claim that the drug war is ineffective, saying the data would “refute” this allegation.
The top cop also bristled at the study's conclusion that the government’s war on drugs resulted in an increase of abusive policemen, saying that this is “baseless and unfair” as the organization has never tolerated any form of abuse.
The study had said that “privileges given to cops gave rise to corruption and abuse of power.”
“I would like to point out that the PNP and other enforcers of the war on drugs were never bestowed any privilege as the study claimed…The PNP has never tolerated rogues in its ranks,” Eleazar said, as the institution has its own mechanism to make rogue policemen accountable.
Before this, the country's top cop had given us hope that the war on drugs would be less draconian and instead follow due process and the rule of law. But his latest statements indicate that before the top cop retires in a few months' time, we may even see an escalation of the war on drugs that has been marked by the same "shoot-first, ask-questions later" approach apparently preferred by no less than the Chief Executive himself.
Taiwan grapples with COVID-19 surge
Was it complacency, or was it cross-Strait politics at work?
Taiwan, our nearest neighbor to the north, witnessed no new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 at one point since last year. But starting May 15, nearly 180 cases were recorded and the Taipei metro area was placed on partial lockdown. There have been over 9,000 cases on the island and more than 300 deaths, which came as a shock to Taiwanese who had been made to believe that they had already defeated the virus.
Though these numbers may seem minuscule compared to most countries, the current situation is seen as a potential threat to the Taiwanese political status quo, with President Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling Democratic Progressive Party being blamed for the spread of the virus.
Chang Hong-ren, a professor and former director of Taiwan’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), believes that the government clearly “became a victim of its own success.” Since January 2020, when it became clear that COVID-19 was spreading outside of China, Taiwan had been focused on preventing the virus from entering its borders, and failed to prevent a community spread via a lockdown policy, isolation units in hospitals, a testing strategy, or purchase of large quantities of vaccines.”¨ The government did not institute a strict lockdown because of fears of an economic downturn. But Chang believes that only a mass vaccination program would have reduced the spread of COVID-19.
The debate in political circles has centered on vaccine procurement. With only around 300,000 vaccine doses administered before May 15, or just over one percent of the population, one of the lowest vaccination rates in the industrialized world, the political opposition claims the Tsai government has failed to protect the health of Taiwanese citizens.
Vaccine procurement is now a big issue, with the two opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), using it to attack the government.
A recent KMT press release read: “The government has failed to put in place relevant measures to counter the rapid rise of community infections, nor has it strived to increase COVID-19 testing capacity.” With a massive shortage in vaccines, KMT-controlled local governments and charitable organizations have begun to buy their own vaccines, while various KMT officials have accused the government of inflating the domestic vaccine industry’s stock prices.
In early June, the KMT organized car protests in front of the Presidential Office Building. The protesters claimed that the government had failed in protecting the Taiwanese public, allowing the virus to creep into Taiwan’s borders and wasting the 15 months of time Taiwan had to prepare for a community spread event.
One problem is that the Taiwan government does not want to buy effective, internationally recognized vaccines. Beginning late last year, after China’s Sinopharm vaccine began being distributed around the world, Chinese authorities expressed a willingness to sell vaccines to Taiwan. Legislators from the KMT as well as members of the press began asking the leader of Taiwan's pandemic response why the government had not bought vaccines from Beijing. The answer was that the public didn’t trust Chinese vaccines, and that Taiwanese law banned the import of vaccines from the mainland. On June 11, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office invited “Taiwanese compatriots” to come to the mainland and get vaccinated, indicating that 62 thousand Taiwanese already had done so.
The Taiwan government had tried to purchase the vaccine sold by Pfizer, but the deal fell through because the two sides reportedly couldn’t agree over how to refer to Taiwan in a press release.
A Taipei city council member believes that buying vaccines from China should not be the government’s first option, even though it shouldn’t be taken off the table in case the pandemic worsens.