Karl Marxcuz R.

Reyes
JD 2-1

Human Rights under President Rodrigo Duterte

In Re: War On Drugs
When Rodrigo Roa Duterte assumed presidency he has launched a war on
drugs that has resulted in the extrajudicial deaths of thousands of alleged drug
dealers and users across the country. The Philippine president sees drug dealing
and addiction as major obstacles to the Philippines economic and social
progress. The drug war is a cornerstone of Dutertes domestic policy and
represents the extension of policies hed implemented earlier in his political
career as the mayor of the city of Davao.

By early December, nearly 6,000 people had been killed: about 2,100
have died in police operations and the remainder in what are called deaths
under investigation, which is shorthand for vigilante killings. There are
also claims that half a million to seven hundred thousand people have
surrendered themselves to the police. More than 40,000 people have been
arrested. There are no trials, so there is no evidence that the people being killed
are in fact drug dealers or drug addicts. This situation shows the weakness of
human rights institutions and discourse in the face of a popular and skilled
populist leader.

Also, the Philippine judicial system is very slow and perceived as

corrupt, enabling Duterte to act proactively and address the issue of drugs in a
non-constructive way with widespread violations of human rights. Moreover, in
the face of a corrupt, elite-dominated political system and a slow, ineffective,
and equally corrupt judicial system, people are willing to tolerate this politician
who promised something and is now delivering.

The killings have become so common the mass media has settled for
fill-in-the- blank template news reports, differing only in the place, time and
name of the victim. If the victim even has a name the What and the How
remain the same. News write-ups carry the standard explanation for cardboard
justice but knowing if the killings were simply cover-ups for the involvement of
members of the police in the drug trade or just simple cases of personal vendetta
is
hard
to
determine.
As for the killings carried out supposedly in pursuit of police work, there is theu
sual explanation that the executions were done in the course of legitimate law
enforcement operations, however, the use of force, it appears in some cases, may
not be necessary, or, if necessary, was not proportional.

Karl Marxcuz R. Reyes

JD 2-1

Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain

standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal
rights in municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as
inalienable fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply
because she or he is a human being," and which are "inherent in all human
beings" regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or
any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense
of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for
everyone. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on
persons to respect the human rights of others. They should not be taken away
except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances.

For the past few months, there has been a clear neglect of such right.
Extra-judicial killings occurs on a daily basis. The rule of law has been taken for
granted as well as the lives of those executed without the benefit of a judicial
trial and blatant disregard of their constitutional right to due process as
enshrined in the Constitution. The government as well as its instrumentalities
and also the people must still believe in the rule of law that we still
have a system of law that processes and punishes wrongdoers. We have our Bill
of Rights that accord the right to be presumed innocent. What is worrisome in
this situation is that the war on drugs is becoming a convenient pretext for
misguided or utterly corrupt law enforcers to kill just any one. There might not
be a manifest public outcry, but there is definitely a seething undercurrent of
remonstration against the disregard for human life. The murder of drug suspects
is still murder under the rule of law.