Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo:
philstar.com
residential
candidate Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign promise during the 2016 election
was that he would need just six months to eradicate the drug problem in
the country. Then as president on September 2016 he admitted that he
would need another six months to achieve that goal.
After missing that goal for a second time, in the wake of thousands of
Filipinos extra-judicially killed, Duterte now admits that it would
likely take longer than his six-year term of office to rid the country
of illegal drugs. “Alam ko na nagkamali ako. Nagkamali talaga ako,”
Duterte stated last week in a speech at Malacańang, adding that even
countries like the United States have failed to achieve what he is
promising to.
In a
New York Times op-ed article last February 7, 2017 titled: President
Duterte Is Repeating My Mistakes, former Colombian President Cesar
Gaviria wrote “…the war against them (illegal drugs) cannot be won by
armed forces and law enforcement agencies alone. Throwing more soldiers
and police at the drug users is not just a waste of money but also can
actually make the problem worse. Locking up nonviolent offenders and
drug users almost always backfires, instead strengthening organized
crime. That is the message I would like to send to the world and,
especially, to President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Trust me, I
learned the hard way.”
Duterte quickly responded the following day to Gaviria’s article by
calling him an “idiot” for trying to lecture him on a subject he was
quite familiar with as the long-time mayor of Davao City. Well, here we
are in mid-August and Duterte appears to have lost some of his hubris,
admitting that it will take longer—way longer—than he first thought. One
wonders whether Duterte is also preparing to argue for an extension to
his 6-year term as president.
Duterte’s excuse for missing his self-imposed six-month deadlines is
partly because many government and law enforcement officials are also
dealing in illegal drugs. But he should have known this when made his
campaign promise ... and if he didn’t, why not? You don’t undertake a
program of such magnitude—that commits billions of pesos and significant
military and law enforcement involvement, in addition to the thousands
killed—without an adequate understanding of the problem.
But
as we said before, Duterte appears to prefer “shooting from the hip”,
and go barreling away, guns blazing, believing what he wants to believe.
For instance in an interview during the 2016 election campaign, Duterte
stated that drugs permanently destroy the brain thus making it difficult
for drug addicts to ever lead normal lives or otherwise rehabilitate
themselves—which in part might explain why he has no problem having them
eliminated via extra-judicial killings.
The
president should heed the words of the famous American writer, Mark
Twain—who should be near and dear to the hearts of Filipino nationalists
as he was an outspoken critic of America’s involvement in
the Philippines at the turn of the last century. Twain noted that “what
gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for
sure that just ain't so.”
Published 8/21/2017
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