Baes, Aldrin Paglinawan

GRSS 200 Philosophy and History of Social Sciences

Jose Alejandro S. Tenorio, PhD

WAR ON DRUGS IN THE PHILIPPINES

(The Greatest Happiness Principle of Jeremy Bentham)

Drug addiction is not only a domestic problem but also a worldwide issue. Its rapid

increase from being the cause and effect of the problem is one of the main reasons of the

unstable and slow development of the country. Rampant consumption of illegal drugs and

criminal acts related to drug addiction are some of the major problems faced by the Philippine

society.

The Philippine government is fully aware of the menacingly increasing cases of drug

abuse within the country; thus, it has been very rigid in the fight against the cause. Most of the

drug users in the Philippines are young people. Illegal drugs that are present include marijuana,

LSD, opiates, and barbiturates. Since Rodrigo Roa Duterte became the president last year, his

brutal campaign against drugs has claimed thousands of lives. Human rights groups say he is

guilty of crimes against humanity, yet that is scant comfort to those mourning loved ones.

Today, there are already various anti-drug laws, agencies and campaigns created by the

national and local government to address drug abuse but fighting against the cause is difficult

because illicit drugs is not only a mental-disease but now classified as related to commission of a
Baes, Aldrin Paglinawan
GRSS 200 Philosophy and History of Social Sciences
Jose Alejandro S. Tenorio, PhD

crime. Research carried out on drug-related crime found that drug misuse is associated with

various crimes that are in part related to the feelings of invincibility, which can become

particularly pronounced with abuse. Problematic crimes associated include shoplifting, property

crime, drug dealing, violence and aggression and driving whilst intoxicated.

A study made by Dr. Lance L. Simpson from Columbia University College of Physicians

and Surgeons, he said more than 200 acts of felony in Manhattan over the last two years says he

has proved an assumption he set out to test: that people who commit crimes while under the

influence of drugs behave differently from those who commit the same crime while not under the

influence of drugs.

This is the reason why President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the police to end drug

addiction in the Philippines by conducting operations that will rehabilitate those people who are

using illicit drugs. He also sees that drug dealing and addiction is a “major obstacles to the

Philippines’ economic and social progress.” The dominant drug in the Philippines is a variant of

methamphetamine called shabu. According to a 2012 United Nations report, among all the

countries in East Asia, the Philippines had the highest rate of methamphetamine abuse. Estimates

showed that about 2.2 percent of Filipinos between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four were using

methamphetamines, and that methamphetamines and marijuana were the primary drugs of

choice. In 2015, the national drug enforcement agency reported that one fifth of the barangays,

the smallest administrative division in the Philippines, had evidence of drug use, drug trafficking,

or drug manufacturing; in Manila, the capital, 92 percent of the barangays had yielded such

evidence.

By early December, nearly 6,000 people had been killed: about 2,100 have died in police

operations and the remainder in what they called “deaths under investigation,” which is
Baes, Aldrin Paglinawan
GRSS 200 Philosophy and History of Social Sciences
Jose Alejandro S. Tenorio, PhD

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. Although some human rights organizations and political leaders have spoken out

against the crackdown that Duterte has been relatively successful at not having the legislature

engaged in any serious oversight of or investigation into this war.

If we will apply and analyze the ethical theory of utility, it describes the sum of all

pleasure that results from an action, minus the suffering of anyone involved in the action. Jeremy

Bentham also believes that human beings are intrinsically bound to seek pleasure and avoiding

pain, and the concept of what is "good" and "bad" are defined by what is pleasurable and painful

to human. If we will believe that for every action, there will be a reaction from other people and

that our prevailing principle will not act in any way which results in a negative or detrimental

reaction from others towards us.

Applying this principle in a crime, we could say that one would not commit an offense

likely to mean one suffered more pain for committing the act, than the possible pleasure one

might derive from it. To secure desirable behaviour and to deter undesirable, society might
Baes, Aldrin Paglinawan
GRSS 200 Philosophy and History of Social Sciences
Jose Alejandro S. Tenorio, PhD

respond to this theory by imposing the most stringent set of laws and punishments possible. But

this would not be a Benthamite solution. The object of legislation, according to Bentham, should

be to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. The pain of punishment

should, therefore, be proportional to the happiness that it secured. To set everything clearly, laws

are created not to confer pain to the people but to secure the greatest happiness of everyone from

experiencing more pain.

The war on drugs has received a high level of popular support from across the class

spectrum in the Philippines but it led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date, mostly urban

poor. At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed to the Philippine National Police. Duterte

and other senior officials have instigated and incited the killings in a campaign that could amount

to crimes against humanity. If we will quantify the negative implication of this war on drugs of

President Duterte, it seems that people is treated as means to an end. It makes people do the right

things for the wrong reasons. It assumes we have a common human nature with common desires.

It leaves no room for individual tastes, or for some people to value highly something that others

might think is of no account at all. The question that we should answer here is that who is the

right person to decide what is better or constitutes the greatest good to everyone? All ideas are

subjective, created in each of our minds. Who are we to decide other’s fates? The only just way

to increase utility is through non-violent action via persuasion by the power of ideas and words.

Killing is not the answer. Rehabilitation is the solution.

References:

Bentham, Jeremy (January 2009). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

(Dover Philosophical Classics). Dover Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0486454528.

Baes, Aldrin Paglinawan
GRSS 200 Philosophy and History of Social Sciences
Jose Alejandro S. Tenorio, PhD

Bentham, Jeremy (2001). The Works of Jeremy Bentham: Published under the Superintendence

of His Executor, John Bowring. Volume 1. Adamant Media Corporation.

Foucault, Michel (1975). Discipline and Punish. France

Mill, John Stuart (1998). Crisp, Roger, ed. Utilitarianism. Oxford University Press

Internet Source

https://peterwicks.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/the-pros-and-cons-of-utilitarianism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/

http://dm.ncl.ac.uk/courseblog/files/2011/03/michel-foucault-panopticism.pdf

http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1564&context=theses

http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2017/09/04/1735640/war-drugs

https://www.cfr.org/interview/human-rights-and-dutertes-war-drugs