The Philippine Incumbent and Past Leadership Admitted: The War on Drugs Have Failed!
Past and previous leaders recently admitted that in the war on drugs, "the cure was worse than the disease."
In 2016, the newly elected administration unleashed a brutal war on drugs (called Operation Tokhang) which claimed thousands of lives.
Back then, I warned that not only would this fail through different mechanisms, like abuse of power, but that it would serve as a vehicle for tyranny.
Nota Bene: Instead of a quote, I'm posting a screenshot of a follow-up post about this controversy I wrote back in 2017. Since the thought police system now governs the platform of my old blog, the previous links might vanish.
And this post is published exclusively on Substack.
Link of the above: https://prudentinvestornewsletters.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-law-of-economics-foretold-of.html
Fast forward to May 2023.
The excerpts below represent the stunning confessions, by the current and previous leadership, of the failures of their war on drugs campaign.
Inquirer.net, March 6: (bold mine)
President Marcos on Thursday (Friday in Manila) acknowledged that “abuses” were committed and that the human rights situation became a cause for concern during the previous administration, when his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte waged a bloody antidrug crackdown that claimed the lives of thousands.
“In my view, what had happened in the previous administration is that we focused very much on enforcement,” Marcos said at a forum by the Center of Strategic and International Studies on the fifth and last day of his working visit in the US capital.
“And because of that, it could be said that there were abuses by certain elements in the government and that has caused some concern with many quarters about the human rights situation in the Philippines,” he added.
‘Stronger, wealthier’
The President also noted that even after the antidrug campaign waged during Duterte’s time, “The syndicates have grown stronger, wealthier and more influential, worryingly so.”
“But instead of going after everyone,” he said, his administration “(tried) to identify the key areas that we have to tackle … so that we can see a diminution of the activity of the drug syndicates.”
“We are looking at the problem as a whole,” Marcos explained further. “We start with the errant policemen, [then] we go back to the rehabilitation process for those who have unfortunately fallen into this addiction cycle.”
He said his administration’s “change in policy” in its approach to the drug war was based on the premise that street-level drug pushers did not have the means to run the syndicates.
The architect of Operation Tokhang then confessed…
Inquirer.net, May 13: (bold mine)
‘Unnecessary’ deaths
To this, the former President said: “Tama siya na (He is correct that) along the way, in the enforcement of the law, [there is] a rigid attitude towards the enforcement of the law, abuses will be committed.
“Now, I’ll go further, not only abuses, sometimes killing, unnecessarily, or even [of] an innocent person,” Duterte added. “Along the way, [there is] collateral damage, marami yan (there are many). But those were never intended, I am sure, by the law enforcement agency.” While in office, Duterte had tried to dodge a possible investigation by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity. According to government figures, the antidrug crackdown that became the centerpiece of his six-year term resulted in more than 6,000 deaths. Human rights groups, however, placed the death toll at more than 20,000. Duterte again sought to justify the use of lethal force in the police operations, saying the officers had to “overcome the resistance” of the suspects being arrested.
Collateral damage
“So what’s the point in empowering somebody if you do not give him enough leeway?” he said. “[There is] collateral damage in a shootout inside the house of a suspect; sometimes the innocent members of the family gets it. But abuses, there are many, because of the high-handed manner of enforcement,” Duterte admitted.
With the arbitrary dispensation of politics (taking the “law” into the hands of the implementors/executioners), why shouldn't these abuses, corruption, and violence happen?
The thing is, history has shown that ruthless and unilateral enforcement of prohibition decrees mostly leads to the same outcome.
Importantly, where is justice for the unfortunate (predominantly poor) families who were victims of "unnecessary deaths/collateral damage" and the innocent lives who suffered from the crossfire?
To paraphrase the former premier of the USSR Joseph Stalin, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of thousands is a statistic.”