Last Friday, I spoke with a pastor from Tagum city, who shared that of the 4,000 drug users/pushers that surrendered in that city, the police sent half of them home without doing or providing anything, they simply lack the resources to help. Another friend related a story from Cebu, where her son was staying in a boarding house, and heard what he thought were leaves falling on the roof, but which turned out to be bullets from a drug raid at the house next door. Apparently, there was a drug den and several users/seller were executed during the police raid. He was told by relatives that the victims had already surrendered to the police in previous weeks, but had gone back to selling drugs, and so they were killed.
In president Duterte's state of the nation address (SONA) on Monday, he painted a picture of the resilient Filipino, facing the darkness of the drug menace, a darkness so deep, because it is the dark just before the dawn of a new day. He vowed to continue his current approach to eradicate (based on PDEA figures) 3 million drug users and pushers, since the number of users and pushers that had surrendered (as of the SONA) amounted to only 120,000, with the those individuals arrested in the thousands.
But before we continue, we should ask ourselves, do we have any evidence to show that the current approach will work, from past experience? President Duterte made repeated referrals during his SONA to "come to Davao" and see how the city is a model of the success of his efforts in governance, and there is the widespread misperception that Davao is a safe, clean and drug free city. Let us therefore go to Davao and examine the evidence.
According to her January 2016 blog, former Davao City Judge and founder of the Transformative Justice Institute, Attorney Adoracion Avisado notes,
"Despite the allegation by some people that Davao City is drugs free, statistics show otherwise. The number of drugs cases pending before the two drugs courts are close to four thousand as of the end of 2015. The number of cases filed each week are definitely more than the number of cases which the two branches of the trial court can dispose."
She further states that an average of 70 cases were scheduled each day in Davao, despite the fact that only 5 can realistically be handled, and that across the nation, it is common to have 30 cases scheduled in the daily docket. The Davao City jail in Ma-a has over 2,500 inmates, thought it was built too handle at most 800. Inmates literally sleep in shifts because there are not enough beds for everyone to lie down on.
This data is from the end of 2015, after more than a decade of Duterte's iron-fisted crack down on crime that left over 1,000 pushers, users and petty criminals dead, according to the Coalition Against Summary Executions. Thus, kung gamitin natin ang ating utak, we can deduce that the iron fist approach to crime does not work, because if it did, than crime surely would have been virtually wiped out, there would be no new drug cases filed in court, and the jail would be nearly empty. However, rather than reducing crime, after a decade of summary killings, there were still 4,000 cases pending in the court and over 2,500 inmates, most of them with drug charges, in the Davao city jail.
Having lived in Davao since 2008, I can also attest to the fact that crime is still a problem by personal experience. In 2012, I remember smelling the marijuana drift into our living room window from the house next door and hearing the male resident abuse his female partner through the window screen at night. We called the police to report both the domestic violence and the drug use. When the police arrived, they interviewed the woman in front of the abuser in the open street, breaking basic protocols regarding how to treat situations of violence against women. The drug den was never busted. My neighbors were victims of akyat bahay multiple times, as well as my parents in a different subdivision, yet nothing happened. I am not saying Davao was worse than any other city, but neither is it much better, and we need to be honest about it.
It's time for us in Davao to be realistic, because we are touted as the model the nation will follow. The "successes" of the city need to be put in their proper context, so that what is good can be emulated, and what is bad can be eliminated. We have to stop comparing the Davao of 2016 to the "NicarAgdao" of the 1980s. The killing of petty thieves from the year 2000-present did not solve the problem of sparrow units and Alsa Masa gun battles in the 1980s and 90s. Rather, it was shrewd political wrangling and quid-pro-quo alliances with the shadow players behind the gun slingers that reigned them in.
The killing of men and women in the sex trade (see my previous article, "Death stalks the streets") did not make us start following the speed limit, rather, consistent use of "speed guns" made people slow down. The killing of low-level criminals has nothing to do with the effective implementation of the women, children and gender code in the city and the 911 program. The killing of kids sniffing glue does not prevent bombings and terror attacks, because rugby boys are not the ones planning to bomb airports, ports and van terminals. We cannot use the justification that death squad killings are necessary for effective governance, which is the underlying message of the current administration.
Orasa na, bangon ta, ug gamiti ang atong huna-huna! Pwede man ta maghimayhimay kung unsa ang cause, ug unsa ang epek. Kay dili logical ang atong pag-justify sa DDS ug sa war on drugs sa national level.
What the extra judicial killings justify is not effective governance, but a narrative woven by that crafty, master story-teller and communicator, placing Digong himself as the center of a salvation story, where he rescues us and our city like Batman in Gotham city, and we repay him with elected office and the entrenchment of his family in political power. The war on drugs is not so much about drugs, as it is about power.
Thus, my argument is simple: first, most of the positive aspects of Davao governance were successful in spite of the DDS, not because of the DDS. Second, since the data indicates that former mayor Duterte could not eliminate crime in his own city, a relatively small city where he could exercise greater control of the mechanisms of government, we cannot expect him to succeed as president of a nation with over 100 million people in 6 months. And third, is the illogic of the "logic model" of the drug war, which is premised on the fact that killing criminals motivates those left alive to stop their criminal activities out of fear. But such is not the case, and our kababayan are paying a dear price for our failure to link causes and effects.
We therefore need to think more carefully about what actually works to reduce crime. There are lots of reasons crime increases and decreases, but hard data and lived experience shows, the summary execution of petty criminals does not help end criminality nor does it improve governance. We will have to be honest and look elsewhere for the answers...
In president Duterte's state of the nation address (SONA) on Monday, he painted a picture of the resilient Filipino, facing the darkness of the drug menace, a darkness so deep, because it is the dark just before the dawn of a new day. He vowed to continue his current approach to eradicate (based on PDEA figures) 3 million drug users and pushers, since the number of users and pushers that had surrendered (as of the SONA) amounted to only 120,000, with the those individuals arrested in the thousands.
But before we continue, we should ask ourselves, do we have any evidence to show that the current approach will work, from past experience? President Duterte made repeated referrals during his SONA to "come to Davao" and see how the city is a model of the success of his efforts in governance, and there is the widespread misperception that Davao is a safe, clean and drug free city. Let us therefore go to Davao and examine the evidence.
According to her January 2016 blog, former Davao City Judge and founder of the Transformative Justice Institute, Attorney Adoracion Avisado notes,
"Despite the allegation by some people that Davao City is drugs free, statistics show otherwise. The number of drugs cases pending before the two drugs courts are close to four thousand as of the end of 2015. The number of cases filed each week are definitely more than the number of cases which the two branches of the trial court can dispose."
She further states that an average of 70 cases were scheduled each day in Davao, despite the fact that only 5 can realistically be handled, and that across the nation, it is common to have 30 cases scheduled in the daily docket. The Davao City jail in Ma-a has over 2,500 inmates, thought it was built too handle at most 800. Inmates literally sleep in shifts because there are not enough beds for everyone to lie down on.
This data is from the end of 2015, after more than a decade of Duterte's iron-fisted crack down on crime that left over 1,000 pushers, users and petty criminals dead, according to the Coalition Against Summary Executions. Thus, kung gamitin natin ang ating utak, we can deduce that the iron fist approach to crime does not work, because if it did, than crime surely would have been virtually wiped out, there would be no new drug cases filed in court, and the jail would be nearly empty. However, rather than reducing crime, after a decade of summary killings, there were still 4,000 cases pending in the court and over 2,500 inmates, most of them with drug charges, in the Davao city jail.
Having lived in Davao since 2008, I can also attest to the fact that crime is still a problem by personal experience. In 2012, I remember smelling the marijuana drift into our living room window from the house next door and hearing the male resident abuse his female partner through the window screen at night. We called the police to report both the domestic violence and the drug use. When the police arrived, they interviewed the woman in front of the abuser in the open street, breaking basic protocols regarding how to treat situations of violence against women. The drug den was never busted. My neighbors were victims of akyat bahay multiple times, as well as my parents in a different subdivision, yet nothing happened. I am not saying Davao was worse than any other city, but neither is it much better, and we need to be honest about it.
It's time for us in Davao to be realistic, because we are touted as the model the nation will follow. The "successes" of the city need to be put in their proper context, so that what is good can be emulated, and what is bad can be eliminated. We have to stop comparing the Davao of 2016 to the "NicarAgdao" of the 1980s. The killing of petty thieves from the year 2000-present did not solve the problem of sparrow units and Alsa Masa gun battles in the 1980s and 90s. Rather, it was shrewd political wrangling and quid-pro-quo alliances with the shadow players behind the gun slingers that reigned them in.
The killing of men and women in the sex trade (see my previous article, "Death stalks the streets") did not make us start following the speed limit, rather, consistent use of "speed guns" made people slow down. The killing of low-level criminals has nothing to do with the effective implementation of the women, children and gender code in the city and the 911 program. The killing of kids sniffing glue does not prevent bombings and terror attacks, because rugby boys are not the ones planning to bomb airports, ports and van terminals. We cannot use the justification that death squad killings are necessary for effective governance, which is the underlying message of the current administration.
Orasa na, bangon ta, ug gamiti ang atong huna-huna! Pwede man ta maghimayhimay kung unsa ang cause, ug unsa ang epek. Kay dili logical ang atong pag-justify sa DDS ug sa war on drugs sa national level.
What the extra judicial killings justify is not effective governance, but a narrative woven by that crafty, master story-teller and communicator, placing Digong himself as the center of a salvation story, where he rescues us and our city like Batman in Gotham city, and we repay him with elected office and the entrenchment of his family in political power. The war on drugs is not so much about drugs, as it is about power.
Thus, my argument is simple: first, most of the positive aspects of Davao governance were successful in spite of the DDS, not because of the DDS. Second, since the data indicates that former mayor Duterte could not eliminate crime in his own city, a relatively small city where he could exercise greater control of the mechanisms of government, we cannot expect him to succeed as president of a nation with over 100 million people in 6 months. And third, is the illogic of the "logic model" of the drug war, which is premised on the fact that killing criminals motivates those left alive to stop their criminal activities out of fear. But such is not the case, and our kababayan are paying a dear price for our failure to link causes and effects.
We therefore need to think more carefully about what actually works to reduce crime. There are lots of reasons crime increases and decreases, but hard data and lived experience shows, the summary execution of petty criminals does not help end criminality nor does it improve governance. We will have to be honest and look elsewhere for the answers...
