War Against Drugs, The Intensive Campaign of the Newly Elected President of the Republic of Philippines

War Against Drugs, The Intensive Campaign of the Newly Elected President of the Republic of Philippines.   

The problem with drugs is a worldwide issue, we heard news from everywhere about how rampant these drugs are and the Republic of the Philippines is not exempted on the problem. For years, the country struggled on how to solve this problem because it slowly destroys the life of many people with no exclusion of age and gender preference, from children, teenagers and adults, man and woman.   

Aside from ending the corruption, bringing an end to drug industry is the main platform of the newly elected president of the Philippines during his campaign. According to him, he will end the country’s problem on drugs within 3 months.    

The elected president Mr. Rodrigo Duterte took its seat as president of the Republic of the Philippines last July 1, 2016, and that’s was the onset of its intensive campaign against drugs. He created his own team to handle and will implement the program by replacing the head of the estate police.    

He started at the barangay level by encouraging all drug users and pushers to take the voluntary surrender or suffer the consequences of getting killed and it was effective. Thousands of drugs users and pushers surrendered because they are scared of what the president might do them. Before Rodrigo Duterte became a president of the republic, he was the mayor of Davao city, the most peaceful city in the country. People adored him because of his genuine love for the people, his desire to help made win every election of the city.   

He was named by CNN as the punisher because of his utmost aspiration to establish a good governance and that includes destroying and eliminating every drug lord of the city. This characteristic of the person has driven him to the presidency. With no doubt, he fulfilled his promised to the people during the election campaign and started his job as pledged.   

Many people said that he could not do it and those people mostly from the opposition. According to them, it is impossible to destroy and industry that existed for so many years and will just eliminate it within 3 months, but he has hopes on his newly created team.     

 

Involvement of High Officials 

Few days after the onset of the campaign, he started naming high profile individuals who are the protector of the drug lords and it surprised many people because 5 generals of the country’s armed forces are one of the protectors of the high profile drug lords. It gained many reactions because these generals will not just accept to president’s statement, because according to them they were doing their job right and that they are not involved in any malicious act of protecting drug lords, but they have the same story.   

It turns out that before Duterte elected as president, he already have network information of the drug industry in the country.   

Death threats started coming in but the president is not scared because he received such threat when he was mayor of Davao city. Even the new police chief is not afraid of the threat, he even encourages them (the drug lords) to come out and fight, if you want war then let’s have war.   

This was the first time that the country experiences a leader that is so true to his words and the people liked him more.    

The naming of high ranking officials who are involved in drug industry continuous and this time there was so many of them. It seems that majority of the country’s politicians are involved in drugs. He named the mayors from different cities all over the country who protector of the drugs lord and some of them are not just a protector, but a distributor as well. People started to think that if the current president did not make it to the presidency, these people will continue on this business, what will happen to the country?   

You can feel the campaign against drugs is in a haste because after few days he released another batch of names and this time it’s not something comfortable because it was the name of 5 Judge of the Supreme Court. Such a huge manifestation of the president that gained many reactions even the chief of justice herself. But the president was not scared, he even said that if there’s a need for martial law just to fulfill my promised to the people, I will do it.     

Widespread Killings 

During this time frame, lots of people were killed since the day the campaign started. Those who did not listen to the invitation for the voluntary surrender were hunted and put in prison and those who fight are shot to death. Every night there are pushers caught alive but most of them were killed due to the act of rejecting and most of the time by assaulting police officers. Currently, already thousands had died because of the campaign and its number continue to increase every now and then.   

The senate, mostly from the opposition conducted an investigation into these killings because they are worried about the outcome but the president stands steadfastly in his plans because according to him if he will behave like the previous administration does, nothing will happen to the country.   

Currently, he mentioned that the secretary justice is also a protector of the syndicate, mentioning that there are drug lords who are already in prison but are still selling drugs and what’s worse is that the drugs were created with the prison. This was the question of the president, why these things happen? It will not just happen if nobody is protecting them and that the protector holds a high position in the government and it turns out that it was the secretary of justice.   

As expected, the secretary of justice will not accept the accusations without a fight, and they are now exchanging views and throwing of garbage but the problem is that the president is clean, he cannot be drag to any malicious issues because he doesn’t have any, and that’s his advantage.   

Hope that with the new president of Republic of the Philippines will truly change the country and bring to its success.