Manila: The number of drug-related killings in the Philippines since Rodrigo Duterte became president two months ago on a pledge to wipe out the illegal drug trade, has reached around 2000, according to data released on Tuesday.

There has been popular support for his campaign, but the wave of killings unleashed since his election victory has alarmed rights groups and brought expressions of concern from the US, a close ally of Manila.

As officials readied a publicity campaign to explain his fight against narcotics, the Philippines national police said that close to 900 drug traffickers and users had been killed in police operations from July 1 to August 20. That was an increase of 141 people over a week, on average 20 people a day.

Last week the police said 1100 other drug-related killings that were not classified as police operations were also being investigated. No new number for that category was given on Tuesday but, together with the new figure for police encounters, the total came to around 2000.

Duterte won the presidency of the Southeast Asian nation in a May election on a promise to wipe out drugs.

Two UN human rights experts recently urged the Philippines to stop extra-judicial killings, drawing a furious response from Duterte, who threatened to pull his country out of the UN. His foreign minister later rowed back on the threat.

Duterte’s communications secretary, Martin Andanar, said on Monday that a 30-second advertisement explaining the anti-drug campaign would be aired over the next week by commercial and public TV stations and in movie theatres.

“The government is not spending a single centavo on these ads and TV stations are carrying them for free,” Andanar told reporters at an event in a Manila hotel.

This is a war

He said his office would also publish a 40-page pamphlet to explain the rising body count. This would be issued on the president’s first trip abroad next week, first to Brunei and then to an East Asia summit in Laos.

“Some people abroad have to understand why many people are getting killed in the anti-drug campaign. They must understand, this is a war and there are casualties,” Andanar said.

“The pamphlet will inform and explain that the government was not killing people at random, that these killings are not extrajudicial in nature but as part of the anti-crime campaign. Some of those killed were police officers who are involved in criminal activities.”

The White House said on Monday that US President Barack Obama is expected to meet Duterte in Laos on September 6 and plans to touch on human rights as well as security concerns.

Duterte’s crackdown on drugs and some strongly worded criticism he has made of the US, present a dilemma for Washington, which has been seeking to forge unity among allies and partners in Asia in the face of an increasingly assertive China, especially in the strategic South China Sea.

There have been few signs in the Philippines itself of a backlash against the war on drugs.

However, on Tuesday a newly formed group called the ‘Stop the Killings Network’ announced a #Lightforlife campaign that would start with simultaneous candle-lighting events on Wednesday evening at six venues across Manila.

(Reuters)</s>Senator: Philippine crackdown 'not going to be the norm'</s>First read

 Apart from fighting drug lords, drug pushers, drug coddlers, and drug users, is President Duterte fighting the foreign media on another front?

One of my readers screams in an email: “The International Media War is ON! The big guns are firing: TIME MAGAZINE, NEW YORK TIMES, LA TIMES, THE GUARDIAN.

“The ostensive claim here is that they are crusaders – fighting an OGRE – the PUNISHER – Mr. Digong Duterte.

“To put doubts in the minds of the people supporting President Duterte with the subliminal message – ‘How could you be supporting that leader of yours when you see he is doing all these bad things, which are not acceptable to us who are looking from the outside and are, therefore, quite objective about it. You see we are a bit more civilized than you guys and know better. SO, we are telling you that HEY, YOU ARE ALL SO WRONG supporting this man. All the blood that is in his hands are now in yours too – so you better dump him and be on the side of the good guys like us.”

Duterte nonchalant and unperturbed

 President Duterte himself is nonchalant and unperturbed by the foreign media coverage of his drug war.

At a press conference in Davao City on August 21, President Duterte declared that he does not care if he is being portrayed by the international media in a negative light, saying he is just performing his duty.

“They say I am the most unpopular among the international press. I don’t care,” Duterte told reporters. “I have a problem to solve here in my country.”

Andanar as Sancho Panza

 In his best imitation of Sancho Panza, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar goes farther than the President. He dared foreign journalists to visit the Philippines so they can see for themselves the extent of the drug menace in the country.

“The international media, as I have repeated time and again, should come to the Philippines and experience the life of the barangay (village) people who experience the drug problems,” Andanar told reporters on the sidelines of the Japan-Asean Media Forum in Mandaluyong.

“It’s not fair for just anybody to conclude that there are extrajudicial killings, that there are so many dead without even qualifying which ones are dead because of authorized police operations, and which ones are killed because of a gang war or regular murders,” he added.

Most disingenuous was Andanar’s claim that President Duterte, in waging the drug war, is just fulfilling a campaign promise in the May 2016 elections.

“He was elected with that platform. He already warned the electorate that if you vote for him, there will be bloodshed. If you don’t want bloodshed, don’t vote for me. But he was voted,” Andanar said.

Finally, Andanar contends that the drug problem is now a pandemic. “This drug menace is pandemic already. Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures.”

Andanar stressed that it is more important to protect the lives of innocent civilians and victims of illegal drugs than the lives of drug lords.

“Investigate the lives, the human rights of those who have been victimized by crimes due to illegal drugs. There are so many of them. Go back to them. Let’s not be one-sided,” he added.

Foreign media research their reports

 The problem with Andanar’s line is that the international media usually are very thorough before publishing or broadcasting anything. They may know more about the Philippine drug problem than Secretary Andanar.

When the foreign media ask what are the compelling reasons and factual background behind President Duterte’s war on drugs, and his draconian call for the killing of drug suspects, what will the government say in response?

Malacañang claims, and President Duterte has said so himself, that there are about 3 to 3.7 million drug users in the country.

Where did this figure come from? Who compiled the statistics or estimates?

Likewise, who is supplying the intelligence and numbers that emboldened Duterte to name and shame government officials as coddlers of drug traffickers in the country?

Like the WMD problem in Iraq

 So far as anyone can ascertain, the figures being cited by the President do not tally with existing official figures of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB).

In a sense, the drug war faces the same problem that George W. Bush faced in the war on Iraq; the war was justified on the grounds that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the invading US military forces could not find them. The entire war was discredited. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been belatedly shamed by the findings of a formal UK inquiry – that British participation in the war was unjustified and immoral.

The Duterte administration’s war on drugs could be faced with a similar quandary – finding the pandemic to justify the bloodshed.

PDEA and NBI clueless

 At a hearing on Tuesday by the House committee on Dangerous Drugs, both the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) disclosed that they did not have any inputs in the war on drugs.

Under questioning by Kabayan Party-list Representative Harry L. Roque, PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña and NBI lawyer Henry Canapi admitted they did not have any involvement in the preparation of President Duterte’s list of drug personalities.

When asked by Roque who could have been advising the President on the list of these alleged drug coddlers in government, Lapeña said he was not sure whether other agencies have been giving information to the President.

CNN’s devastasting report

 When foreign media come to take up Secretary Andanar’s dare to visit, they are bound to ask similar questions. They will be justified in seeking substantiation because what they have been reporting is usually backed up by interviews and statistics.

For instance, CNN, in broadcasting on August 29 a report from the front lines of the drug war, backed up its report with a fact sheet on the illegal drug situation in the country. It reported the often-cited DDB figure, as of 2014, that there are some 1.3 million drug users in the Philippines. And that metaphetamine (local name “shabu”) is the principal illegal drug being produced and trafficked in the country.

CNN went on to relate six illustrative cases of the drug war and the killings. It was by many accounts a devastating piece of journalism.

Such journalism cannot be pooh-poohed by blanket statements that they are the product of a well-funded foreign media campaign against President Duterte.

To discredit them, Malacanang must provide a convincing story about the drug war.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

 Andanar should take time to visit with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) to learn firsthand who are the foreign media that are watching what is really going on.

There he can disabuse them of misimpresssions and mistakes in reporting the drug war.

Of course, some of us may simply not want to consider what foreign media have to say.

As I recall, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” discredited the three monkeys.

The story is a parable of moral responsibility.
More than 2,000 people have reportedly died in the Philippine Drug War.