A WEEK before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his third State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 22, 2024, rights groups had already documented at least 15 persons who allegedly died in the government’s anti-narcotics drive from July 8 to 15.
“This is the most number of killings in a week this year and with the most killed by state agents,” said Carlos Conde, senior researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), on July 22.
At least five drug suspects died and one police operative identified as Master Sergeant Jed Michael Gregorio was killed in action, while six other police officers were also injured in a drug raid in Aleosan, Cotabato of the southern Island of Mindanao on July 10, HRW reported.
However, in a well-applauded speech on July 22, Marcos Jr. touted that the “drug war” under his administration has adopted a “bloodless” strategy.
“Our bloodless war on dangerous drugs adheres and will continue to adhere, to the established ‘8 Es’ of an effective anti-illegal drugs strategy. Extermination was never one of them,” Marcos Jr. said in his annual nationwide televised Sona.
Since he stepped into the Malacanang Palace in June 2022, Marcos said his administration has conducted over 71,500 operations, which resulted in the seizure of more than 44 billion pesos (about 754 million US dollars) worth of illegal drugs.
Over 97,000 drug personalities were also arrested, with more than 6,000 of those arrested were high-value targets, Marcos said in his address
Of those drug personalities arrested, some 440 of them were government employees, Of the number, 42 were uniformed personnel, while 77 were elected state officials.
“To further paralyze their operations, dirty money and assets worth more than five hundred million pesos have been frozen and preserved. With strong case build-up and efficient prosecution, the drug conviction rate is at a high of seventy-nine percent,” President Marcos said.
“More importantly, we welcome the report that the number of drug-affected barangays (villages) in our country has been reduced by thirty-two percent,” Marcos added in his speech.
Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Philippine-based rights group Karapatan, said that Marcos Jr. “again peddled lies in his Sona when he said that his drug war is bloodless.”
“Marcos has not rescinded Oplan Tokhang and Oplan Double Barrel - the key operational plans used in the implementation of Duterte’s drug war. With these in place, and the figures monitored by Dahas project of the UP Third World Studies Center, there is palpable proof that the bloody drug war continues under Marcos,” Palabay told SunStar Philippines on July 23.
Meanwhile, Conde maintained that in the president’s Sona, Marcos Jr. “not only failed to declare an end to the ‘war on drugs’ or outline a human-rights based approach to illegal drugs – he made the spurious and baseless claim that the continuing anti-drug campaign has been bloodless.”
“In fact, according to the monitoring by the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center, more than 700 have been killed under him so far, and the killings worsened in the past year compared to the year before,” said Conde in a report from Catholic news site UCA News on July 22.
“And by claiming several successes such as the alleged reduction in the number of villages affected by illegal drugs (by 32 percent, he said), we expect the ‘drug war’ violence to continue, probably even worsen,” Conde added.
As this developed, Caritas Philippines president Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo called for the President “to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate extrajudicial killings (EJK) in the country.”
"Addressing these issues head-on will restore public trust in the government," Bagaforo said.
The prelate maintained that Caritas Philippines, the Catholic Church’s humanitarian arm, “remains committed to fostering principled cooperation with the government while holding it accountable to the Filipino people.”
"We pray that President Marcos Jr.'s administration will be guided by justice, inspired by the will of the people, and fueled by true patriotism in these challenging times," said Bagaforo.
It can be recalled that during the administration of the erstwhile president Rodrigo Duterte from 2016-2022, the national government was criticized for its “bloody drug war” after Duterte launched a “shoot-to-kill policy” to purge suspected drug personalities in the Catholic-majority nation.
Rights groups estimated that over 20,000 Filipinos have been killed in Duterte's "anti-drug operations," which resulted in the launching of an ICC investigation against Duterte. (SunStar Philippines)
