By Bernadette A. Pamintuan,
College of Law, San Sebastian College-Recoletos
IN HIS campaign before assuming the position of the country’s chief executive, President Rodrigo Duterte promised the safest streets for citizens to freely roam. He implied that he will be bringing the “peace and quiet” of Davao City to the whole country. It was a fairly believable promise that led 16 million Filipinos to elect him. However, only a few months later, the alleys he promised to be crime-free were already stained with blood as thousands were killed because of his “war on drugs.”
Many human rights advocates have characterized Duterte’s war on drugs as a war against the poor. It seemed to be targeting alleged drug pushers and drug users who belong to the lowest socio-economic stratification.
According to the United States National Library of Medicine, many Southeast Asian countries have increasing records of heroin abuse as well as addiction to other types of dangerous drugs. Opium has traditionally been used for treating illnesses and alleviating physical and mental stress, as well as for recreational and social purposes. The prohibition of the sale and use of opium in Myanmar, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand forced many habitual opium users to switch to heroin.
Drug addiction spread first to the populations of capital cities and then to other cities and towns and even to the hill tribes, studies in Thailand have revealed. Most recent studies have shown that heroin abuse has spread further in Asia, both socially and geographically, involving such countries as India and Sri Lanka, which had no previous experience with the problem.
To counter drug addiction and its threat to significant social institutions, Thailand was able to devise a rehabilitative kind of campaign. In a study published at the University of East London, Thai government’s remedies were shown to include medical services that focus on treating drug addicts instead of imposing inhumane penalties on them. Although not completely successful, Thailand’s bloodless campaign paved the way for policy recommendations, such as developing cost-effective and politically viable alternatives to existing compulsory treatment programs, expansion of international and domestic training for competent drug treatment and prevention providers and implementation of stringent regulation on industries using precursor chemicals.
Moreover, in Malaysia, the government established voluntary drug treatment venues known as “Cure and Care” centers that embrace a holistic treatment-based approach to drug addiction rehabilitation. These institutions are said to be a “dramatic shift in the Malaysian government’s approach to drug addiction.” As a result, there have been positive patient experiences associated with the holistic treatment-based approach employed by this method.