The untouchables

As President Marcos and his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte swapped charges of illegal drug use, one question inevitably came up: if they are both sure of their allegations, why hasn’t either of them been charged or arrested on drugrelated offenses?

Duterte cast the first stone by accusing Marcos, in a prayer rally in Davao City on Sunday night, of being a drug abuser. Back when he was mayor of the city, Duterte said, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was on the drug watch of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. He did not name Marcos, Duterte said, because they are friends. The PDEA denied this yesterday. During the 2022 presidential race, Duterte had also warned voters about an alleged cocaine addict among the contenders. He did not name the candidate.

President Marcos said he would not dignify the accusation with a reply. But he said Duterte’s tirade might have been caused by prolonged use of fentanyl, a powerful opioid that has caused deaths in the US and other countries. Duterte had admitted during his presidency that he had been prescribed fentanyl against chronic pain following a motorcycle accident when he was 68 years old.

Fentanyl is a controlled substance in the Philippines; cocaine is a prohibited drug. Duterte had carried out the bloodiest crackdown in the country’s history against prohibited drugs, since his days as Davao City mayor until he became president. He had campaigned for the presidency in 2016 on a platform of ridding the country of the drug menace in six months.

At the end of his presidency, the police reported killing over 6,000 drug personalities in law enforcement operations. Nearly all those killed were from low-income families, including several teenagers. Meanwhile, alleged largescale traffickers such as Cebu businessman Peter Lim, who was on the PDEA’s list of most wanted but whose family reportedly supported Duterte’s campaign for the presidency, appeared untouchable. If Duterte had known all along that Bongbong Marcos was a drug addict, why was the latter spared from the brutal crackdown on illegal drugs? Was it also out of gratitude for the Marcoses’ political support?

Duterte’s war on drugs was hounded by criticism of selective law enforcement. Today drug killings continue, although the scale is much less than during Duterte’s time. The Marcos administration has been pursuing a kinder, gentler approach to fighting the drug scourge, with emphasis on rehabilitation. The word war that has erupted between President Marcos and Duterte shows the complexity of the drug problem and the need for new approaches.