Some People Need Killing: Book Review

Some People Need Killing is former Rappler reporter Patricia Evangelista's account of Duterte's drug war. 

The story is familiar to everyone. Duterte was elected as president of the Philippines in 2016 on the promise of killing drug users and criminals and cleaning up the country.  As Duterte warned:

“I’m telling the Filipino people, not me,” said the mayor. “It’s going to be bloody, because I will not sit there as president and just like any other regime, say, ‘That’s all I can do.’ If you put me there, do not fuck with me.”

But, Patricia notes, none of Duterte's supporters took his words literally. In fact to believe anything he said was to be meshed in a net of contradictions.

To vote for Rodrigo Duterte, you had to believe in certain things. You had to believe, for example, that he was a righteous man. You had to believe he wasn’t a rapist, and didn’t want to be a rapist. You had to believe he was poor, or was once poor, or had lived with the poor. You had to believe in destiny. You had to believe in God. You had to believe that God had a peculiar preference for deadly autocrats, because the presidency is destiny and Rodrigo Duterte was destined to lead.

To believe in Rodrigo Duterte, you had to believe he was brave. You had to believe he would cut America out of military agreements and that Barack Obama was a son of a bitch. You had to fear China, or you had to love China, or you had to believe, in the face of China’s territorial aggression, that Rodrigo Duterte was willing to ride a Jet Ski out into the open sea to plant a flag on the disputed islands China had seized.

To believe in Rodrigo Duterte, you had to believe he was a killer, or that he was joking when he said he was a killer. You had to believe in the specter of a narco state, or you had to believe that he was only playing to the crowd. You had to believe drug addiction is criminal, that drug addicts are not human, and that their massacre can be considered acceptable public policy. You had to believe he could make crime and corruption and illegal drugs disappear in three to six months. You had to believe that a mayor who kept peace by ordering undesirables out of his city could succeed in a country where undesirables were citizens too. You had to believe the intended dead would be drug lords and rapists, only drug lords and rapists, and not your cousins who go off into Liguasan Marsh to pick up their baggies of meth. You had to believe there would be a warning before the gunshots ring out.

To believe in Rodrigo Duterte, you had to believe he was just. You had to believe he was honest. You had to believe he was untainted by the oligarchy and beholden to no one. You had to believe he was your father. You had to believe he was your savior. You had to believe he loved you, because you love him enough to carry his name.

Months before the election Patricia collaborated on a Rappler series profiling each candidate and imagining how their presidency would play out. Of Duterte Patrica wrote:

In the three months before the presidential election, I collaborated on an opinion series with the sociologist Nicole Curato. The Imagined President was a series of presidential profiles published in Rappler, mapping the narrative arcs of every presidential candidate. We compared myth with reality in an attempt to understand what resonated with the voting public.

The final installment was published on May 2, seven days before the elections. It ended with a warning: “If Rodrigo Duterte wins,” we wrote, “his dictatorship will not be thrust upon us. It will be one we will have chosen for ourselves. Every progressive step society has made has been diminished by his presence. Duterte’s contempt for human rights, due process, and equal protection is legitimized by the applause at the end of every speech. We write this as a warning. The streets will run red if Rodrigo Duterte keeps his promise. Take him at his word—and know you could be next.”

I regretted those sentences within a day of publication. They were sensational, colorful, with none of the restraint expected of working journalists. I would have expunged them if I could.

On June 30, 2016, we became Duterte. The streets ran red.

The rest of the book is mostly a catalogue of how the streets ran red. 

Patricia documents particular killings, the involvement of vigilante groups such as the Confederate Sentinels Group (CSG), the attitude of the PNP, the deception of the PNP and their involvement in the killings, and her own journalistic endeavors. 

It is a matter of record that Duterte promised cops they would not be prosecuted for murder so long as they were doing their duty. 

The president offered every cop a promise. He would believe them if they claimed to have killed in the performance of duty. Every cop charged and convicted who followed his orders would be pardoned. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to kill for as long as it’s those idiots, if they start to fuck with your city.”

So, the killings began. Every night the bodies piled up with each time the cops claiming the dead pulled a gun and the killing was done in self-defense as their duty. Analyzing many individual cases Patricia notes the PNP was getting an unbelievably high and accurate kill ratio:

More than a hundred suspects “who yielded” were arrested. All thirty- two suspects who offered armed resistance were shot and killed. There were no injured cops. There were no wounded suspects. To believe this narrative is to believe that local cops clocked a 100 percent kill rate, higher than the already improbable 97 percent reported by a Reuters investigative team in 2016, higher than the 83 percent of the notorious police shootings in Rio de Janeiro.

“Luckily,” wrote one Bulacan lieutenant colonel, “there were no casualties on the PNP side.”

Were they murders? The cops did not call these deaths murders. If they were not murders, was every Bulacan policeman, including the rawest of recruits, a marksman of such astonishing talent that every random armed encounter was met with such fatal accuracy? If they were not murders, how was it possible that police reported no casualties after twenty-five separate gunfights inside a single twenty-four-hour period? And if they were not murders, did every suspect who shot at the police miss the target?

Luck, said the police.

Good, said the president.

Patricia spends a good deal explaining how language was subverted, not just to describe the drug war, but also in everyday parlance. Take for instance the word "salvage."

There are other terms for this. Extrajudicial killing. Vigilante-style murder. Targeted assassination. In the Philippines, a specific word evolved for this specific sort of death. The word is salvage.

Contronyms are Janus words, two-faced and adversarial. An alarm can turn off, or it can go off. A moon might be out as the lights go out. Contronyms mean the opposite of themselves, occupying an abstract category of the English language. He left; she was left. He ran fast; she held fast. He sanctioned the killings; she sanctioned the killers.

Salvage, in my country, is a contronym. It is a hopeful word everywhere else. To salvage is to rescue, regardless of whether the salvaged is a ship or a soul. Salvage and salvation are rooted in the same word—salvus, “to save.” So sayeth the book of Luke: “And Jesus said to him, this day is salvation come to this house, as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

During the drug war no one was killed, they were neutralized. 

Here is another word for death. The word is neutralized.

Project Double Barrel, laid out in Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016, seeks, among other goals, the “neutralization of illegal drug personalities nationwide.” Human rights lawyers argue it is an order to kill.

On the basis of that word, they have challenged the entire drug war apparatus at the high court.

Nowhere in the memorandum, or elsewhere in Philippine law, is the word neutralization defined. “Neutralize means to kill,” wrote the lawyers of the Free Legal Assistance Group.

The government insisted that to neutralize meant only “to overcome resistance.” Whether that meant to disable or to kill depended on the exigencies of the moment. Those moments are many. Twenty-six-year-old Raymond Yumul of Concepcion in Tarlac was neutralized. Jeffrey Cruz of Carcel Street in Quiapo was neutralized. Samar native Wilfredo Chavenia was “neutralized while the other suspect managed to escape.” John Ryan Baluyot of Olongapo City was “completely neutralized.” Two unnamed male suspects, distinguished only by the color of their shirts—one white, one gray—were both neutralized. Fernando Gunio of Quezon City, who “sensed the presence of police operatives,” allegedly pulled out a handgun and fired, forcing the police to “neutralize the said suspect.” Forty-two- year-old Arnel Cruz and fifty-one-year-old Oliver Reganit “were neutralized before they could hide in the middle of the cornfield.” Renato dela Rosa, alias Jay-jay Toyo, after allegedly opening fire, was cornered and “subsequently neutralized by the responding police officers.”

Each of these men is dead, but in the official reports of all these cases, none of them were referred to in the narrative of events as killed. They were neutralized, verb and noun, as was narrated by the Bulacan officers who shot Justine Bucacao and Bernard Lizardo: “Neutralized suspects sustained gunshot wounds on different parts of their bodies.”

Then there is the word "good." Duterte called the drug war killings "maganda 'yun." But as Patricia informs us Duterte did not mean the killings were "good" he meant they were "beautiful."

“Thirty-two died early in Bulacan in a massive raid,” said President Duterte. “Maganda ‘yun.”

In Filipino, maganda means “beautiful.” It can also mean “good.” It was unclear what the president meant that afternoon in August, but there was a reason every English-language local news organization chose to use the word good instead of beautiful. Good, as egregious a judgment as it was, was far less outrageous than beautiful. Beautiful would have offered an element of pleasure, a romanticizing of brutality, the impression that the commander in chief of a democratic republic was not just pleased but delighted by the ruthless killing of his citizens.

Those of us who wrote of the president and his frequent incitements to violence did so in good faith, offering the benefit of the doubt to a man whose rambling threats had come to target members of the free press. We translated his putang ina into “son of a bitch” instead of “son of a whore.”

We repeated his spokespersons’ smiling excuses, their explanations that the president should be taken “seriously, not literally,” that his words required “creative imagination” in their interpretation, and that it was only “heightened bravado” that had him encouraging his soldiers to rape on the battlefield.

I quoted the president’s statement on my own social media page: “ ‘Thirty-two died early in Bulacan in a massive raid,’ said President Duterte. ‘That’s good.’ ”

A reader left a comment. “For the record, he did not say 32 dead was a good thing,” he wrote. “Duterte said it was beautiful. Let not the perversity be lost in translation.”

Here then is what the president said in the late afternoon of August 16, 2017.

“Thirty-two died early in Bulacan in a massive raid. That’s beautiful. If we can kill another thirty-two every day, then maybe we can reduce what ails the country.”

It is rather odd that Patricia speaks of writing "the President and his frequent incitements to violence did so in good faith, offering the benefit of the doubt." After already noting that he threatened to kill and after writing a profile warning "the streets will run red if Rodrigo Duterte keeps his promise. Take him at his word." What benefit of the doubt was there to give except to take him at his word which she says is literal? 

During Duterte's term and even now the argument rages on whether Duterte ever ordered the cops to kill anyone. Yet, that is exactly what happened as soon as he was elected. Why? Because he told the cops to do so. Likewise the killings stopped when Duterte told the cops to stop killing. This came about because of the killing of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo.

The story made the international news. The South Korean embassy called for an investigation. The Senate held hearings. Two police officers were charged with, one later convicted of, the crime kidnapping with homicide. There were reports the victim’s head had been wrapped in packing tape and his corpse cremated—before a panicked funeral parlor employee flushed the ashes down a toilet.

It was seven months after the declaration of the drug war. More than seven thousand were dead, and only then was Rodrigo Duterte finally willing to concede his cops had done wrong. “I apologize for the death of your compatriot,” he told the South Korean government in a public address. “We are very sorry that it had to happen.”

The chief of the Philippine National Police, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, stood before the media and said the police would “focus on internal cleansing.” He said he would have preferred to kill the cops involved, if only it were legal. He called the crime offensive. He would “melt in shame if I could.”

President Rodrigo Duterte called the incident an embarrassment but refused Dela Rosa’s offer to resign. On January 30, 2017, the president suspended the same police institution he had empowered from participation in the war against drugs. Police antidrug units were dissolved. He called the police “the most corrupt, corrupt to the core.” He called them criminals. The war would continue, but there would be no more police operations against illegal drugs.

On that night, every drug war journalist I knew gathered at the press office of the Manila Police District. We waited. There were no crime scenes that night. No drug addict died; no dealer was shot. Not in Manila, not in Caloocan, not in Cebu or Navotas or the slums of Quezon City. The president had spoken, and for the first time in seven months—with the exception of Christmas Day—no new names were added to the death count. It came as no surprise that the cops kept their guns holstered, but the vigilantes did too. There were no salvagings, no drive-by shootings, no masked gunmen kicking down doors of suspected meth dealers. The uniformed militia stood down, and so did, if the reports were to be believed, the killers they employed. The death toll stopped at 7,080.

The war, or what had been called the war, ended with the flush of a toilet.

How can anyone read that and come away with any other conclusion than the PNP was working off the orders of Duterte?

The book ends with a discussion of how many were killed during the drug war and profiles the regret of several former Duterte supporters. Needless to say the exact number of the dead will never be known.

I cannot, with any certainty, report the true toll of Rodrigo Duterte’s war against drugs. Numbers cannot describe the human cost of this war, or adequately measure what happens when individual liberty gives way to state brutality. Even the highest estimate—over 30,000 dead—is likely insufficient to the task.

When the intention is to lie, numbers can make extraordinary liars. Even government agencies fail to agree on how many the police killed in alleged antidrug operations. The PNP’s Directorate for Operations put those deaths at 7,884 in August 2020. The government’s communications office, two years later, lowered the total to 6,252 in May 2022. The last of the DUI numbers was released in 2019, but the number is meaningless in determining drug-related deaths, conflated as it is with every possible variation of homicide.

The truth is almost certainly much higher. A study by Columbia University’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism estimated that government figures were “a gross underestimation of the extent of drug- related killings in the Philippines.” The Supreme Court demanded all documents on the “total of 20,322 deaths during the Duterte administration’s anti-drug war.” The Commission on Human Rights chairperson Chito Gascon said the number of drug-related deaths could go “as high as 27,000.” International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that “between 12,000 and at least 20,000 killings” were committed in relation to the drug war.

Of course all these numbers are called baseless propaganda by the government. 

While Patricia writes a compelling narrative about the facts of the drug war one thing she does not do is offer a reason as to why it happened. She gives a "what" but not a mechanism of "why." Perhaps one quote from the book offers insight. At the funeral of one drug war victim several people dressed like PNP officers showed up. But they were not cops. They were "force multipliers" going by the name of Philippines Hotline Movement Incorporated (PHMI). One observer commented:

“They look like idiots,” Vincent Go said, when I caught a ride with him to the cemetery. “That’s the thing with Filipinos. They put on a uniform, and suddenly they think they’re kings. Even during the pandemic, even in the villages, even if they’re just security guards. They’re so proud of their outfits, their vests, something changes inside of them. Clueless morons thinking they’re enforcing the law, but really they have no goddamn clue what they’re doing.”

Why did the drug war happen as it did? Why did the PNP kill with impunity and why do they continue to be a corrupt organization? Because of those uniforms which imbue them with a sense of superiority and bestows upon them their power. They are cops, a brotherhood, who can do whatever they want without consequence because they stand above the crowd. As Gaspar de San Augustin wrote in 1720:

43. They act tyrannically one toward another. Consequently, the Indian who has some power from the Spaniard is insolent and intolerable among, them—so much so that, in the midst of their ingratitude, some of them recognize it, although very few of them. Yet it is a fact that, if the Spaniards had not come to these islands, the Indians would have been destroyed; for, like fish, the greater would have swallowed the lesser, in accordance with the tyranny which they exercised in their paganism.

http://www.philippinehistory.net/views/1720sanagustinb.htm

During the Referendum of 1599 Filipinos thanked the Spanish from saving them from the tyranny of their chiefs. 

The bishop of Nueva Segovia, Don Fray Pedro de Soria, collected those Indians together, by order of his Majesty, and told them of the advantages of the Spanish monarchy, and how beneficial it would be for them to have Don Felipe, the king of the Spaniards, as their king, who would protect them peacefully and with justice. The chiefs answered not a word to this. Thereupon, the bishop spoke again and asked them whether they had understood the words he had spoken to them, and if they would answer. Thereupon a clownish Indian arose and said: “We answer that we wish the king of España to be our king and sovereign, for he has sent Castilians to us, who are freeing us from the tyranny and domination of our chiefs, as well as fathers who aid us against the same Castilians and protect us from them.”

https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-philippine-referendum-of-1599.html

In the Philippines it has always been the way of the ruling class to oppress the masses even before the Spanish arrived. The tendency towards tyrannical rule is in the blood of Filipinos.

But rare, non-existent really, is the journalist, the writer, the researcher who will investigate the Philippines by noting racial characteristics unique to Filipinos and extrapolating from those traits a reason for Filipino society being the way it is. Thankfully Gaspar de San Augustin was not afraid to do so.

Two Filipino Lawmakers Want to Kill Chinese Drug Dealers As Revenge

Recently, after exhausting all diplomatic efforts, two Filipinos in China were executed for drug offenses. 

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/12/02/2315993/2-filipinos-executed-china-drug-trafficking-dfa

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Saturday the execution of two Filipinos in China for their involvement in drug-related activities.

DFA spokesperson Ma. Teresita Daza, citing information from the Philippine Consulate General in Guangzhou, disclosed that the execution took place on November 24. 

The DFA delayed the announcement pending formal notification from the Chinese side regarding the execution.

Even with the Philippine government's extensive efforts, including high-level appeals, China upheld the death penalties, citing its internal laws.

"Our repeated appeals were consistent with the laws and values of our nation, which put the highest premium on human life," Daza said.

"In the end, the Chinese government, citing their internal laws, upheld the conviction, and the Philippines must respect China’s criminal laws and legal processes,” she added.

The identities of the two individuals were intentionally withheld out of respect for their families' privacy.

The DFA supported the two since their 2013 arrest in Guangdong, helping through trials and appeals. In 2018, the province's High People’s Court confirmed their verdict. 

The arrest of the two Filipinos was associated with the possession of 11.872 kilograms of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) concealed in DVD players found in their individual luggage.

As upsetting as the execution of these two men is to their families and the DFA even the DFA notes that "the Philippines must respect China’s criminal laws and legal processes." That should go without saying for the laws of any country. When one travels abroad the local laws must respected. These men did not respect those laws but instead attempted to smuggle 11 kilograms of methamphetamine into China and they were dealt with according to the laws of China. 

This act of Chinese justice has been responded to in the most ridiculous fashion by two Filipino lawmakers which boils down to this: Let's put Chinese drug dealers to death.

The first lawmaker, Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Robert Ace Barbers, had this to say.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1870026/return-of-death-penalty-sought-after-2-filipinos-were-executed-in-china

Lawmakers on Monday called for the reimposition of the death penalty on drug suspects caught in the country.

The proposal comes, after Chinese authorities executed two Filipinos found guilty of drug-related cases.

Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Robert Ace Barbers stresed Filipinos are being executed for drug cases abroad, yet Philippines does not impose harsh penalties on individuals convicted of these crimes.

“Our kababayans convicted in foreign lands for drug trafficking are almost always executed, while we extend kid gloves treatment, if not VIP treatment, to foreigners, especially Chinese nationals who are apprehended and convicted of the same offense here,” Barbers said.

The lawmaker is the chairperson of House committee dangerous drugs.

“There should be a similar punishment imposed on these foreign nationals, as well as fellow Filipinos, who introduce drugs into the country,” he said.

“If other countries treat illegal drugs as a threat to their citizenry and the whole society, why are we so soft in treating this menace in our own territory?” he asked.

According to Barbers, both House and Senate should look at proposals to reimpose capital punishment on drug-related cases.

In July 2022, Barbers filed House Bill (HB) No. 1543, which imposes death penalty on certain heinous crimes.

The bill states a foreigner convicted of a drug offense by a local court will get death penalty if such a crime is punishable by capital punishment in the foreigner’s home country.

“China was firm in executing Filipinos, yet we are being flooded with tons and tons of illegal drugs, especially shabu, from China,” Barbers compared the two situations.

“It is a wonder that while China was very, very hard on drug trafficking, the drugs that come to our shores originate from its ports,” he pointed out.

“Yet, we have yet to see one Chinese convict being executed to deter others from committing such heinous crime,” he lamented.

The second lawmaker, Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, said the following.

https://mb.com.ph/2023/12/4/tit-for-tat-ph-should-execute-china-drug-convicts-too-says-rodriguez

Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is proposing a bold response to China’s recent execution of two Filipinos for drug-related offenses. 

The response that the veteran lawmaker wants is a tit-for-tat; basically, an eye for an eye. 

“If they put our compatriots to death for violations connected to illegal drugs, let us do the same to their nationals, many of whom are caught manufacturing, peddling or smuggling drugs into the country,” he said in a statement Monday, Dec. 4. 

Rodriguez said most of the drug law violators caught by local authorities are Chinese. 

“Many of them are even able to get away with their crimes because of connections in high places and, of course, bribery,” added the chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments. 

He said it is not fair that Filipinos get the death penalty in China, while Chinese nationals involved in illegal drugs in the Philippines suffer only life imprisonment. 

He said drug traffickers and other criminals in China and other countries where the death penalty is imposable “go to the Philippines to pursue their nefarious activities because they know that if they are convicted, they can enjoy life in prison and even continue their illegal pursuits there". 

But for the Philippines to execute criminals--their nationality notwithstanding--Congress must first revive capital punishment through legislation. 

Death penalty in the country was abolished way back in 2006 during the time of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. 

As such, the Rodriguez called on Congress to immediately pass his measure, House Bill (HB) No. 2459, filed on July 27, 2022. 

The measure is titled, “An Act adopting the higher prescribed penalty, including death, of the national law of an alien found guilty of trafficking dangerous drugs and other similar substances, amending for the purpose Republic Act (RA) No. 9165, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.” 

China carried out the executions and many others in past years despite repeated pleas from the Philippine government, international human rights groups and countries advocating respect life and human rights. 

“While we do not question the laws of China and other countries, we must ensure that our countrymen do not suffer the short end of the stick. As such, there is a need to amend our laws to make sure that foreigners caught violating our statutes on drugs get the harshest penalties that their laws impose,” he said.

There is quite a lot of interesting information in the statements of these two men. 

First, we learn that a majority of the drugs in the Philippines originate from China. That is quite problematic but is a well known fact as we read often in the news that the Bureau of Customs routinely discovers large amounts of drugs concealed in various shipments. The solution to that problem is, at least, tougher and more inspections.

Secondly, according to Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, is that Chinese drug dealers, after they are convicted and sentenced, can live an easy life in prison and "continue their illegal pursuits there." That is also a huge problem. It is well known that New Bilibid prison is a hot bed of illegal activity and corruption. How are these Chinese drug dealers able to "continue their illegal pursuits there" without the knowledge and assistance of corrupt BuCor officials? The solution is to clamp down on such corruption and make prison life uncomfortable and difficult for inmates to continue conducting illegal activity on the outside. Of course measures to curb corruption have been ongoing for years to no avail which is a stain on the justice system of the Philippines. 

Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Robert Ace Barbers further claims that these Chinese drug dealers are given the kid glove and VIP treatment. Why is this? Again, that is a problem of corrupt BuCor and DOJ officials. 

Thirdly, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez says he does not question the laws of China but that is exactly what he is doing. He is bemoaning the fact that China's drug laws impose stiff penalties including death. Neither he nor Rep. Barbers are showing any respect for China's sovereignt by wanting to kill Chinese drug dealers as revenge. 

Instead of keeping a stiff upper lip and saying, "Dura lex, sed lex or the law may be harsh but it is the law," which was repeatedly stated by the government during the ouster of Justice Sereno and the denial of ABS-CBN's franchise, they want revenge. They want to put Chinese drug dealers to death. This is a rather petulant and childish response to the death of two of their fellow countrymen. There are two reasons this is not a proper response. 

1. The Philippines is party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which outlaws the death penalty. There is no provision in that treaty for withdrawal from it. To reinstate the death penalty would prove that the Philippines is not serious in keeping its international agreements. I will have an article about that later.

2. Even if the death penalty was revived no current Chinese drug dealers would be executed. It would be unjust and unlawful to resentence them under new guidelines. These two Representatives would have to wait years before their plan for vengeance could be unfurled. The two Filipinos who were executed were arrested in 2013, convicted in 2016, their sentence was upheld in 2018, and it is only in 2013 that they were put to death. Are these two Representatives willing to wait ten or more years for revenge as accused Chinese drug dealers move thorough the very slow justice system?

3. If Chinese nationals were sentenced to death it is very likely the Chinese government would do as the Philippines DFA did and exhaust all diplomatic means to save them. What then? They strike a deal, the drug dealer goes free, and no vengeance. Or the sentence is carried out and China decides to retaliate in some form thus subverting their vengeance. Either way their plan would go awry. 

This reaction from Representative Robert Ace Barbers and Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is totally childish and petty. Legislation should never be a product of revenge. There are plenty of harsh laws in place to be imposed upon drug dealers. That China is a main source of drugs is a problem best handled by the Bureau of Customs and the DFA. That convicted Chinese drug dealers are able to live in relative ease and continue to conduct business is the fault of the Philippines very broken justice system about which these men have nothing to say. 

Rather than seek to solve problems the appropriate way Barbers and Rodriguez prefer the Duterte approach and wish to resort to killing. That is not a solution to the drug problem in the Philippines. Duterte tried it and it did not work. But these are the kinds of men haunting the halls of the Philippine government. Men who want to take a hammer and destroy rather than devise ways to build a working justice system. Men who have no idea how to build a functioning government free from corruption. These kinds of men are part of the problem facing the Philippines. 

The Real Reason the ICC is Investigating the Philippines

The ICC has denied the Philippines appeal to cease their investigation into Duterte's brutal drug war which resulted in thousands of people being killed. This has caused an outcry amongst various politicians and pundits about how the ICC is picking on the Philippines and should investigate human rights abuses in Western nations. Senator Imee Marcos' comments are typical.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1750575/picking-on-ph-but-not-probing-western-nations-icc-a-caricature-of-intl-justice-says-imee-marcos

Senator Imee Marcos on Friday joined the chorus of criticisms thrown at the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the administration of her brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., as she called the tribunal a “caricature of international justice.”

Imee lambasted the international court, saying it fails to go after crimes committed in Western nations and only picks on “less developed countries” like the Philippines.

The ICC is investigating alleged crimes against humanity committed under the leadership of Marcos Jr.’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte in the context of his violent war on drugs.

It is rather hilarious that Marcos calls the Philippines "less developed." Isn't it part of her job to help develop the nation? And of course it was her parents who plundered the nation. The reason the Philippines remains undeveloped is because the government is corrupt at every single level from the Barangay hall to Malacañang. What is she doing to remedy that? Nothing at all. 

“The ICC’s long-standing failure to investigate Western nations for countless crimes against humanity makes the court a caricature of international justice,” Imee said in a statement.

She cited the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq, which was “based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction and in violation of resolutions by the United Nations.”

According to a Reuters report, the invasion was meant to topple a dictator and usher in democracy but instead plunged war-scarred Iraq into “years of upheaval and chaos.”

“Selective justice, anyone? This month marks the 20th year of the ICC’s failure to bring those responsible to account. The West’s oft-invoked cliché about upholding an ‘international rules-based order’ is apparently a sham,” Imee said.

Is Imee Marcos unaware that the Philippines was part of the coalition of the willing? 

"The Philippines is part of the coalition of the willing. We are giving political and moral support for actions to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction," Mrs. Arroyo told the graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) at Fort Del Pilar in Baguio City. 

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2003/03/21/199720/145rp-backs-coalition-willing146

Will she be condemning the AFP and President Arroyo for backing the USA's invasion Iraq? Of course not. 

The senator then went on: “Picking on African nations and other ‘low-hanging fruit’ like the Philippines is easier for the ICC. The perpetual circus of putting leaders of less developed countries on trial seeks to divert the world’s attention from the crimes against humanity committed by the West.”

Imee argued that the supposed diversion promotes the “false image” of Western nations as “unimpeachable protectors of human rights.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, human rights issues are openly used as pressure points, as bargaining chips to serve Western [neocolonialist’s] intertwined political, economic, and military agenda,” she added.

Government officials in both the Marcos and Duterte administrations had repeatedly questioned the jurisdiction of the ICC over the Philippines after its withdrawal from the Rome Statute – the global treaty that created the ICC – took effect in 2019.

But according to Article 127 of the Rome Statute, a state party shall not be discharged from its obligations to the statute prior to its withdrawal.

The Supreme Court also ruled in the same position in 2021, saying that “withdrawing from the Rome Statute does not discharge a state party from obligations it has incurred as a member.”

"Low-hanging fruit like the Philippines?" It's incredible that Senator Marcos is badmouthing the Philippines. Will she recognize that the justice system is broken too? No of course not. 

The running theme is that the ICC is picking on the Philippines while ignoring really real human rights abuses committed by the West. But this is not the case. As far as the invasion of Iraq there was a preliminary investigation into alleged war crimes. There is a lengthy Wikipedia article about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_and_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq

Senator Marcos and every other politician and pundit bringing up the Iraq war as proof of the hypocrisy of the ICC is simply ignorant of the facts. 

They are also ignorant that the reason the ICC is investigating the Philippines' drug war is not because they are picking on "low-hanging fruit" but because a FILIPINO LAWYER filed a case against Duterte and several other officials in 2017. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/25/mass-complaint-launched-against-philippines-president-duterte-at-icc

A Filipino lawyer has filed a complaint at the international criminal court (ICC) accusing president Rodrigo Duterte and 11 other Philippine officials of mass murder and crimes against humanity.

In the first publicly known filing to the Hague court against Duterte, Jude Sabio submitted the  77-page complaint that says the president has “repeatedly, unchangingly and continuously” committed extra-judicial executions or mass murders over three decades, amounting to crimes against humanity.

It says the killing of 9,400 people began in 1988 when Duterte was mayor of the southern city of Davao and has lasted throughout his 10 months so far as president, during which he has waged a virulent and bloody “war on drugs”.

The communication is based on the reports of human rights groups, Duterte’s own public admissions that he killed, media reports and the testimony of Sabio’s client, Edgar Matobato, a man who testified in the Philippines senate that he was part of a hit squad that operated on Duterte’s orders.

The complaint also referred to testimony from retired police officer Arturo Lascanas, another hitman who said he personally killed “about 200 people” as a member of the Davao Death Squad. That organisation, Lascanas has said, regularly took direct orders from then-mayor Duterte to kill criminals, political opponents and journalists.

“Sometimes we kidnapped our subject and put the packing tape on their head until they suffocated, and then we would throw them in the street,” recalled Lascanas in an interview with the Observer.

Philippine lawmakers have dismissed the credibility of Matobato and Lascanas, while Duterte’s aides have rejected claims that he killed or ordered unlawful killings, even after he announced that he threw one suspect to his death from a helicopter.

The 72-year-old leader has led a bloody campaign against drugs that has left more than 7,000 people dead since June last year, mostly suspected low-level dealers and alleged addicts. Rights groups say vigilantes, who conduct most of the killings, are paid by the police, a charge law enforcement denies.

A March resolution delivered by European Union lawmakers said there were also “credible reports” that Philippine police falsify evidence to justify extrajudicial killings. However, Duterte has enjoyed widespread domestic support and high approval ratings for his lethal crackdown.

The complaint to the ICC against Duterte and government officials called for an investigation, arrest warrants and a trial.

“The situation in the Philippines reveals a terrifying, gruesome and disastrous continuing commission of extrajudicial executions or mass murder,” the complaint said.

The ICC office of the prosecutor said in a statement said that it had received a communication. “We will analyse it, as appropriate. As soon as we reach a decision, we will inform the sender and provide reasons for our decision,” the office said.

It is true that 3 years later Sabio withdrew the complaint but the ICC says complaints cannot be withdrawn.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/1/14/jude-sabio-international-criminal-court-rodrigo-duterte.html

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor, however, told CNN Philippines that no communication before them can be withdrawn. It added that any supposed withdrawal "would have no impact" on the preliminary examination it is conducting.

"The Office cannot effectively destroy or return information once it is [in] its possession or control. However, the Office would register any supplemental information the sender may now want to provide, including in terms of how to treat such information," its news desk said.

There you go. End of story. The ICC is not picking on the Philippines but is following through on a complaint brought to it by a Filipino. Since the Philippines did not withdraw from the ICC until 2019 the period of their membership, 2011 - 2019, is lawfully covered by the Rome Statue to which the Philippines was a party. There is nothing else to say. If the Philippines refuses to cooperate they can be counted not trustworthy for refusing to adhere to a treaty they willingly signed. Of course when it comes to rulings in their favor like the WPS issue they are all gung-ho for the international rule of law. Don't forget the Philippines remains a member of the UN and President Marcos attended the World Economic Forum with a large retinue because the Philippines remains an integral part of the World Order. 

Please do not think this article is something it is not. This is not a defense of the ICC. This is not a defense of the West. This is not a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This is a direct rebuke against the ignorance and hypocrisy of self-righteous people like Imee Marcos. Learn the facts before you open your mouth to vomit forth an opinion. 

Braindead Senator Bato Wants Drug Use Decriminalized in Order to Decongest Jails

If there is one thing Senator Bato does well it is living up to his name which means rock. One would have to have a head made of stone to come up with his ideas. Take decriminalizing drugs for instance. It's a controversial topic which requires a lot of thought to balance out public safety, public health, and justice. But for rock-headed Bato it's a lot more simple than that. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1697832/bato-dela-rosa-now-having-second-thoughts-on-legalizing-drug-use

Senator  Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa has admitted he is now having second thoughts about his proposed law that would decriminalize illegal drug use in the country.

Legitimizing the use of controlled substances, which is contained in his Senate Bill No. 202, was among those discussed  last Tuesday by the  Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs which dela Rosa chairs.

Senate Bill No. 202 was filed last July.

(That bill that I authored – which I will sponsor in the plenary, if approved – we created it during the height of our war on drugs where our jails were already getting congested with drug offenders.)

(So we filed this out of pity for those crammed in jails. We want to decongest jails so I thought that maybe we can decriminalize illegal dug using.)

After just one hearing though, dela Rosa said he is now rethinking amid arguments presented during the deliberation.

He cited in particular the strong stance of law enforcement agencies against his proposed law as it might send a wrong signal to the public that drug use is okay since no one will get jailed for doing it anyway.

(I’m having second thoughts now, being the proponent of such a measure.)

“That’s the beauty of Senate hearings, napakinggan mo both sides at ‘yun nga being the proponent of such [a] measure medyo nagdadalawang isip ako ngayon.”

(That’s the beauty of Senate hearings, you can hear both sides and as I said, being the proponent of such a measure, I’m now having second thoughts.)

The senator, however, clarified he is not withdrawing his bill as the committee will still hold another meeting to hear more arguments.

Despite knowing that any proposal to decriminalize drug use would be opposed by law enforcement Bato and Robin Padilla filed Senate Bill 202 out of pity to decongest the jails. Goodness knows Philippine jails are dangerously overcrowded. And Bato's solution is not to fix the jails by making them larger or improving them in anyway but it is to decriminalize drug use. As if that will solve the problem of decongestion. 

One anti-drug group pointed this out.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/852581/anti-drugs-group-opposes-decriminalization-of-illegal-drug-use/story/

An anti-drugs advocacy group on Friday expressed opposition to the proposed decriminalization of illegal drug use, warning of its possible dangers to the community.

“The bill is good for the ears but it’s actually foolishness,” Anti-Drugs Advocate, Laban ng Pamilyang Pilipino chairperson Jonathan Morales told Dobol B TV in an interview.

Morales said psychologists or psychiatrists should take part in evaluating the proposed measure because they know the “state of mind” of drug users.

(If they mix these drug users with the community, it would be dangerous, even more so if they decriminalize the use of illegal drugs just to decongest the jails.)

He added that the government should improve jail facilities instead to address the congestion problem.

Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, a former national police chief, earlier said he wants to decriminalize the use of illegal drugs to decongest jails and address drug addiction as a health issue instead of a law enforcement matter.

Instead of putting them in jails, Dela Rosa said drug users should only be admitted to rehabilitation centers.

However, Morales pointed out the corruption issues that hound some rehabilitation centers, as well as problems in management, administration, logistics, and monitoring in these facilities.

(There was bribery in the centers between the patients and the people taking care of them. Certifications were being issued that these patients are already well but in reality they are not.)

Patients who are paying receive privileges and special treatment while staying in rehabilitation centers, according to Morales.

Morales also pointed out there is only a small percentage of users who are not pushers because most of them are already selling illegal drugs so they can pay for their own supply.

The fact of the matter is drug use does not need to be decriminalized in order for jails to be decongested. In 2014 the Supreme Court issued guidelines on how to decongest jails. They recommend two things: enforcing the rights of the accused persons to bail and a speedy trial.

https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/1476/

A speedy trial in the Philippines? Sometimes cases take decades. The justice system is completely wrecked when it comes to speedy trials.

The most congested prison in the Philippines is New Bilibid and the DOJ is implementing measures to clean it up.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1183555

The sweet taste of freedom finally came for 371 persons deprived of liberty (PDL) who were released Monday, even as the Department of Justice (DOJ) also submitted the names of 300 other PDLs to Malacañang for the possible grant of executive clemency.

"The 371 released were a result of the DOJ and Bureau of Corrections' (Bucor) computation (of time served) with the help of Public Attorney's Office (PAO) lawyers," DOJ spokesperson Mico Clavano told reporters.

Clavano said DOJ Secretary Crispin "Boying" Remulla, PAO Chief Persida Rueda-Acosta, and Bucor Director General Gerald Bantag "collaborated to make this possible. Today, 300 more are up for executive clemency."

The 240 majority of the 371 PDLs released already served their maximum sentence, 98 qualified for parole, while 31 were acquitted and two qualified for probation.

At least 191 PDLs, were from the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa, 37 from the Correctional Institute for Women (CIW), while 143 PDLs came from other prison and penal facilities run by the Bucor.

Forty-five including four women were senior citizens.

Remulla, who has announced the prisons' decongestion as a top priority of his office personally visited the NBP.

"This may be the largest mega prison in the world. There may be no other facility with this number of inmates," he said.

Remulla said consultants place the ideal capacity of NBP at 2,500 individuals. "The ideal number in a prison facility is around 2,500. We have more than 10 times that number here in Bilibid," he said.

Remulla said subsequent release of qualified PDLs will follow in the following months. "This is just the beginning, we plan to release PDLs in the coming months. If we get lucky, there will be a batch of PDLs to be released in October, another batch in November, and another batch by Christmas," he said.

Just Google "decongest jails Philippines" and many articles about this problem and its solution will turn up. 

It's simply mind-boggling that the man who was once the head of the Philippine National Police thinks that the decriminalizing drugs is a perfect solution to decongesting jails. Was he not aware of this problem and its various solutions during his term as the top cop?  Here is an article from 2017 when Bato was PNP Chief. 

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/06/16/1710620/philippine-jails-511-congested-audit-finds

The state auditors attributed the jail congestion mainly to the “increase in the number of drug-related cases in the country” as well as the court’s slow or no action on the pending cases “due to lack of judges, postponement of hearings and the slow disposition of criminal cases that carry the penalty of reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment.”

The court also noted that many detainees qualified to post bail remain in jail due to poverty.

“Some cases were bailable but detainees who are below poverty line cannot afford to post bail so they were stuck in the jails,” the report read.

The report further noted that the lots where some jail buildings were constructed “were of limited space, hence, construction or expansions horizontally of the said buildings may not be possible.”

Slow or no action on pending cases and too many poor people able to post bail. Yet three years previously these two exact problems were what the Supreme Court recommended being fixed in order to decongest jails and here we are in 2022 with the same problems. And Bato really thinks decriminalizing drug use will decongest the jails? What an idiot!