MANILA
Now the police here want to rehabilitate drug users in their “war” on drugs. That’s what they should have done in the first place.
Here’s what the police did to start their war: They started rounding up drug users and pushers, killing thousands of them in the process.
The international community was outraged, unbelieving that in this day and age, people are still being gunned down with impunity just for being suspected of using or selling drugs.
But the Philippine government has paid no attention to those who protest the killings. President Rodrigo Duterte even announced satisfaction when a particular night of killings netted several casualties.
Among Filipinos, incredibly, not all of us are outraged by the summary or extrajudicial killings (EJKs). This shows that we Filipinos have a low level of discernment or appreciation for people’s rights, that there should be due process, that suspects cannot just be killed summarily without judicial review of their alleged criminal activities.
In the course of the campaign against drug users and pushers, some members of the police force have been caught involving themselves in illegal activities, like the kidnapping and killing of a Korean businessman. Minors have been killed, without proof that they, too, were involved in the drug trade. A number of policemen have been sacked for various offenses but it’s apparent that the force requires massive cleansing of its ranks.
Why do I say it was wrong from the start? Because what Mr. Duterte should have done was to first, cleanse the police force of its bad elements and make it a disciplined force. Second, retrain those who deserve to remain on the force (they’re only doing this now at this late stage). Third, train policemen in how effectively to apprehend suspected drug users and pushers without having to kill them on the spot. Fourth, build enough rehab centers for the anticipated number of drug users. And fifth, send those arrested to rehab centers.
What the police have actually done was the complete reverse. First, they went guns blazing in rounding up drug suspects and committed EJKs with impunity. Second, police brass found out the rotten elements within their ranks midway through the drug campaign. Third, some of the crooked policemen committed crimes like kidnapping, selling apprehended drugs, and abused their authority through brutal arrest tactics and alleged extortion activities.
If that’s not doing things the wrong way, it’s hard to imagine what is. The biggest mistake of them all is the targeting of drug users instead of stopping the supply. Cut off the supply of drugs completely and there won’t be any users. No drugs, no users or pushers.
Now the police want to rehabilitate drug users. Don’t they see the inanity of it all, that they’ve been waging a “war” wrongly from the start?
Or, are they playing the rehab card because, in the latest SWS survey, majority of Filipinos don’t believe that police were forced to kill EJK victims because they tried to shoot it out with arresting officers?
While there is now a rising public uproar over the EJKs, there was a long while when too many Filipinos were silent over the summary killings, making themselves complicit in the killings.
Arrests and rehab should have been the method used in the first place instead of EJKs. How do you tell that to the families of the thousands of EJK victims? In any case, it’s way too late, they can’t bring back the dead.
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