More blood but no victory as Philippine drug war marks its first year
MANILA, (Reuters) - Launched a year ago, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs has resulted in thousands of deaths, yet the street price of crystal methamphetamine in Manila has fallen and surveys show Filipinos are as anxious as ever about crime.
Duterte took power on June 30 last year, vowing to halt the drug abuse and lawlessness he saw as “symptoms of virulent social disease.”
Thanks to his campaign, government officials say, crime has dropped, thousands of drug dealers are behind bars, a million users have registered for treatment, and future generations of Filipinos are being protected from the scourge of drugs.
“There are thousands of people who are being killed, yes,” said Oscar Albayalde, Metro Manila’s police chief told Reuters. “But there are millions who live, see?”
A growing chorus of critics, however, including human rights activists, lawyers and the country’s influential Catholic Church, dispute the authorities’ claims of success.
They say police have summarily executed drug suspects with impunity, terrorising poorer communities and exacerbating the very lawlessness they were meant to tackle.
“This president behaves as if he is above the law - that he is the law,” wrote Amado Picardal, an outspoken Filipino priest, in a recent article for a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines publication. “He has ignored the rule of law and human rights.”
The drug war’s exact death toll is hotly disputed, with critics saying the toll is far above the 5,000 that police have identified as either drug-related killings, or suspects shot dead during police operations.
Most victims are small-time users and dealers, while the masterminds behind the lucrative drug trade are largely unknown and at large, say critics of Duterte’s ruthless methods.
If the strategy was working the laws of economics suggest the price of crystal meth, the highly addictive drug also known as ‘shabu’, should be rising as less supply hits the streets.
But the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s own data suggests shabu has become even cheaper in Manila.
In July 2016, a gram of shabu cost 1,200-11,000 pesos ($24-$220), according to agency’s figures. Last month, a gram cost 1,000-15,000 pesos ($20-$300), it said.
The wide ranges reflect swings in availability and sharp regional variations. Officials say Manila’s street prices are at the lowest end of the range. And that has come down, albeit by just a few dollars.
“If prices have fallen, it’s an indication that enforcement actions have not been effective,” said Gloria Lai of the International Drug Policy Consortium, a global network of non-governmental groups focused on narcotics.
The problem is, according to Derrick Carreon, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s spokesman, that while nine domestic drug labs have been busted, shabu smuggled in from overseas has filled the market gap.
“Demand needs to be addressed because there are still drug smugglers,” Carreon said.
While smuggled shabu has kept the price down in the capital, the official data shows the price has gone up in the already substantially more expensive far-flung regions, like the insurgency-racked southern island of Mindanao.
Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao last month after militants inspired by Islamic State stormed Marawi City, and the army’s failure to retake the city quickly has dented the president’s image as a law-andorder president.
AFRAID OF THE DARK
Surveys by Social Weather Stations (SWS), a leading Manila pollster, reveal a public broadly supportive of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, but troubled by its methods and dubious about its effectiveness.
SWS surveys in each of the first three quarters of Duterte’s rule showed a “very high satisfaction” with the anti-drug campaign, said Leo Laroza, a senior SWS researcher.
In the most recent survey, published on April, 92 percent said it was important that drug suspects be captured alive.
Respondents also reported a 6.3 percent rise in street robberies and break-ins. More than half of those polled said they were afraid to venture out at night, a proportion that had barely changed since the drug war began, said Laroza.
“People still have this fear when it comes to their neighbourhoods,” he said. “It has not gone down.”
Public and police perceptions of crime levels seem to diverge.
The number of crimes committed in the first nine months of Duterte’s rule has dropped by 30 percent, according to police statistics cited by the president’s communications team.