He gained his fame through his strong stance against illegal drugs. But his goal in ending the menace was put in question as President Rodrigo Duterte failed to issue any definite framework on his campaign against illegal drugs.
Apart from his almost daily verbal tirades against drugs, Duterte has not signed any official document detailing his agenda on drug campaign even after 80 days in office.
In the words of Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), "Duterte's war on drugs is one largely verbalized but not codified by any form of official issuance, or parameters in law and jurisprudence."
Since the first day when Duterte assumed office, the body counts for fatalities continue to rise. Philippine police operations yielded a daily average of 38 person killed in drug-related operations. In the last 80 days, over 3,000 people were killed.
Duterte's unrestrained marching orders to police operatives and military personnel is to "Do your work and I will protect."
Without any executive order or memorandum but the President's word, the body files increases. Suspected drug personalities were hunted like dogs, butchered like animals irrespective of who will be destroyed in the crossfire, including children.
While the Philippine police claimed that the supplies of drugs in the country have decreased by over 50 percent, cases of the so called extra-judicial killings rose of record high. The fatalities in Duterte's 80 days in power almost equal to the 3,240 recorded deaths during the 14-year martial law period of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Police blamed the vigilante groups as responsible to half of these killings. But if indeed they were, law enforcers failed to consider that these groups resurrected at the onset of the President's war against drugs.
With no single case being solved since these killings occurred, the Philippines seems to become a country of hoodlums, where killers can slaughter anyone they want in the name of the President's war against drugs.
Duterte's anti-drug campaign has caught the attention of the international communities with no less than the United Nations assailing that the campaign violated the framework of the individual's human rights.
US President Barrack Obama, while favoring the campaign against illegal drugs, pointed out that it must be done within the paradigm of respect to human rights.
But neither the UN nor Obama escaped from the tirades of Duterte, who insisted to spare the Philippines from the lectures of human rights and to respect the independent foreign policy of the country.
Duterte's formula on war against drugs was the same as the one previously used by the US during the Nixon administration, some countries in Latin America, and Asian countries like Thailand. But these drug war predecessors admitted that the formula did not work. Instead, it worsened the problems of killings.
Indonesia, under the administration of President Joko Widodo, embarked a stiff campaign against drugs to the point of imposing death penalty to those who were proven guilty of drug charges. Every time it imposed a death penalty, Indonesia caught the attention of international communities. But contrary to the Philippines, every drug convict who was hanged in Indonesia was given their days in court.
