THOUSANDS HELD IN WAR ON LOITERING

Critics say crackdown has no legal basis as vagrancy was decriminalised in 2012

EACH night, police in teams of about a dozen fan out across the most rundown areas here, rounding up slum-dwellers who linger in the streets, or teenagers who play in makeshift computer gaming shops.

Children scavenging on mountains of trash are ordered home, their parents warned of jail if minors are seen out late again.

Men found shirtless and those smoking or drinking alcohol outdoors are taken to district offices, cautioned, and their names and addresses recorded.

This is a war on loitering, instigated by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, famous for his bloody war on drugs and his obsession with social order.

Duterte launched it out of the blue on June 13 during one of his trademark rambling speeches, when he said people hanging out in the streets should be ordered home, and if they refused, he would personally tie their hands and drop them into a river.

Manila police took that as a directive, implementing it with gusto, and some 59,000 people have since been apprehended.

The crackdown had been condemned by activists, legal groups and opposition lawmakers, who said it had no legal basis as vagrancy was decriminalised in 2012, and that Duterte was again harassing Manila’s poor, already traumatised by the war on drugs.

“This is all about imposing control on the poor, by using force or the threat of force to intimidate them. What for? The intention is to keep them from resisting, from fighting back,” said Antonio Tinio, an opposition congressman.

But Duterte, who said the crackdown was a “crime prevention campaign”, had not suffered any backlash. A Pulse Asia poll conducted last month showed 88 per cent of Filipinos approved of his performance as president.

In its first week, the anti-loitering drive resulted in death.

Genesis Argoncillo, 25, arrested for not wearing a shirt, died after being beaten by cellmates.

Since then, fewer people were held overnight or longer in Manila’s overcrowded police station cells. Most were booked and freed, about a third were fined and some were charged with offences.

Two resolutions by a congressman and by a senator calling for a legislative probe into the crackdown were filed on June 26, although it was unclear whether one would be launched as Duterte commanded a big majority in the congress and senate.