The dirty secrets behind Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’

The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, can be accused of many things, but failing to live up to his campaign pledges isn’t one of them.

As a candidate, he declared that death by summary execution was a fate awaiting anyone associated with the drug trade. The fish in Manila Bay, he vowed, would grow fat feeding on corpses of drug dealers. He cited 100,000 as the target figure.

Two months into Duterte’s presidency, the toll has risen above 2,000, with the nation’s police ostensibly responsible for less than half of those killings. Vigilante assassins account for some of the other deaths, but the police also freely employ contract killers.

Last week, the BBC published an interview with “a diminutive, nervous young woman carrying a baby” who is part of a female team of assassins valued for their ability “get close to their victims without arousing the same suspicion a man would”. She had so far killed six people. She said the “hits’”were commissioned by a high-ranking police officer who is also part of the narcotics trade. 

It’s a lucrative profession, each killing carrying a reward of more than US$400 (Bt14,000), a windfall for the impoverished and the unemployed. It’s also a trap, because there’s no easy way out once you take the plunge. Her employer had threatened her with death if she quit killing, the assassin told the BBC.  

And who exactly are the victims? Certainly not the “big bosses”, judging from the woman’s testimony. 

In his rhetoric, Duterte has often failed to make a clear distinction between kingpins, dealers and addicts. On the campaign trail, asked what he would do if he discovered one of his children was involved in drugs, the candidate spontaneously responded: “I will kill him.”

The five-year-old child shot dead last week wasn’t one of his own, though. Danica May Garcia was killed when gunmen on motorbikes came for her grandfather in Dagupan City. The intended target escaped with a wound.

During any killing spree, innocents will inevitably get caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile the assassins’ true targets have been identified on the basis of suspicions, rumours, innuendo or local vendettas – with no appeal permitted against the resulting death sentence. The very idea of law enforcers playing judge, jury and executioner violates universal principles of justice and the rule of law.

The rampant trade in drugs and growing rates of addiction are serious problems in the Philippines, as they are in many other countries, the main culprit in this case being methamphetamine, known locally as shabu. But even if one overlooks the rather obvious fact that such problems are rooted in deeper societal malaise, a crackdown on drug dealing and manufacture should entail arrests, fair trials and punishment, while addicts deserve treatment rather than a bullet in the head.

Duterte’s extreme measures reflect not so much the power of the state machinery as its weaknesses. Furthermore, they tend to backfire. Not only is the Philippines likely to pay a heavy price for this unprecedented state-sanctioned brutalisation of society, but chances are that the scourge of drugs will not disappear either.

We must acknowledge, though, that this is what Filipinos voted for. Granted, Duterte’s “landslide” win was based on less than 40 per cent of the popular vote, which suggests the majority had qualms about endorsing him, but he was well ahead of his rivals. There were protests recently over plans to inter the body of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, overthrown by a popular uprising 30 years ago, in a cemetery reserved for national heroes. But the murderous “war on drugs” has not drawn much reaction outside parliament – perhaps in part because would-be critics are intimidated.

Duterte has also lived up to his reputation as an exceptionally foul-mouthed politician, his crude tongue-lashings targeting everyone from the Pope to the US ambassador in Manila. The Pope effectively turned the other cheek; Washington remonstrated, but only mildly. After all, the Philippines is a key Asian ally and Subic Bay is once again a regular port of call for US warships amid an unresolved spat with Beijing over islands in the South China Sea.

Duterte has also shot his mouth off at the United Nations, threatening to quit the international forum. Worthy of note though is that he has so far refrained from training his verbal guns on China. Perhaps he has a reasonably good idea of what he can get away with.

Parallels have inevitably been drawn between Duterte and Donald Trump. Most potent among them is that, were Trump by some misfortune to be elected in November, the biggest threat to the US would be inside the White House. The Philippines has a head start: the greatest danger to the republic already resides in Malacanang Palace.