Illustration by Ana Mouriño
The hit list is long and innocent people plagued with the disease of addiction are dying in Southeast Asia.
Filipino dictator Rodrigo Duterte is on a witch hunt for drug addicts and anyone involved in the drug trade, and here is what he’s said about it..
All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you. Rich or poor, I do not give a shit. My order is to destroy.
Meanwhile, President Trump was eager to meet with Duterte, inviting him to the White House earlier last month. While that in-person meeting never came to fruition, a phone call did on April 29.
“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duderte on the call, according to a leaked transcript obtained by The Washington Post and The New York Times. You can read that transcript here. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
There’s a crystal meth epidemic in the Philippines, but instead of offering help to users to get off the crank, Duderte is killing people instead.
“This fight against drugs will continue to the last day of my term,” Duderte has said. “I don’t care about human rights, believe me.”
Duterte has threatened to kill his own children if he caught them using drugs.
In the Philippines, the prisons are full — 158 percent over capacity. It’s easier and cheaper to kill drug offenders.
There are private rehabs, but they are mostly full and more expensive than the average Filipino can afford. It costs $650 a month — double what most Filipinos make in a month — to go to The Bridges of Hope rehab in Manila, which has room for just 92 people.
The police assemble hit lists of suspected drug offenders and users, and they are sent to districts called barangays, where community organizers are pressured to confirm them and add any additional names.
Surprisingly, there is not much of an opioid problem in the Philippines. The prevalence rate is just 0.05 percent compared to 5.41 percent in the U.S.
When he won the election, Duterte pledged to kill “100,000 criminals” and he won the election fair and square with 38 percent of the vote among a five-candidate field.
Executing drug addicts is not a new phenomenon. Countries like China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have all done it in the past.
Military and police have been given huge boosts in funding in order to carry out these massacres, and Duderte has reduced the country’s health budget by 25 percent and cut spending on labor, agriculture, foreign affairs, and employment.
Trump believes the Philippines are an important player in the situation with North Korea, which is why he wanted to communicate with Duderte in the first place.
Meanwhile, current death counts are as high as 8,000, based on numbers released by the police and independent counts by human rights groups and media.
This kind of overzealous ideology is inexcusable, and I am ashamed that our president is endorsing it.
