Philippines: New Turns of the War on Drugs
The activities of the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, as president, are causing more and more negative feedback from his political opponents. So, the other day, Senator Leyla de Lima called on the Philippine Cabinet of Ministers to remove Rodrigo Duterte from the post of head of state, declaring him impeachment. According to the senator, Duterte is guilty of numerous massacres. By the way, Leila de Lima is directly related to the law enforcement activities of the country, since for five years, from 2010 to 2015, she held the post of Minister of Justice of the Philippines. Then she led the profile committee in the Senate of the Philippines.
Fifty-seven senator is considered one of the most principled opponents of Duterte. A lawyer by profession and a human rights activist by occupation, de Lima was born in 1959 and, after receiving a law degree, began her career in the Supreme Court of the country. By the way, what is interesting is that my dear aunt de Lima, Julie de Lima, is married to Jose Maria Sison, the permanent leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, whose armed wing, the New People’s Army, has been leading a partisan war against government forces for decades. But Leyla de Lima herself is more likely a liberal in her political views. She is a member of the Liberal Party of the Philippines.
According to de Lima, Duterte is guilty of the fact that he created and led the "death squads", which are cracking down on anyone suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Back in 2012, an investigation was conducted against Rodrigo Duterte about his involvement in the massacres in the period from 2005 to 2009. At that time, as the report of the Philippine Human Rights Commission testified, the Death Squad of the city of Davao, the mayor of which the current president of the country worked, destroyed the 206 people. Of these, 107 people had criminal records or were suspected under criminal charges. The commission was headed by Leyla de Lima, who expressed dissatisfaction with the practice of extrajudicial executions.
15 September 2016 in the Philippine Senate listened to former professional killer Edgar Matobato, who confessed to involvement in numerous murders that he committed for twenty years while he was a member of the Death Squadron of Davao. The testimony given by Matobato in the Filipino Senate is truly impressive. If they are true, of course. According to Matobato, he became a Lambada Boys fighter in 1988. Then Rodrigo Duterte, who was the mayor of Davao for many years, attended to creating his own "power" unit. He created a group in which initially there were seven people. Formally, Edgar Matobato himself, like many other killers of the group, was issued by personal security guard Rodrigo Duterte and was listed as an operational officer of the Civil Security Directorate of the Davao City Hall.
The number of "Lambada", which became known as the "Death Squadron of Davao", gradually grew. Firstly, many wanted to have the patronage of an active and influential mayor of Davao, and secondly, drug dealers really use the hatred of normal Filipinos. Nevertheless, the "death squads" killed not only drug dealers and even not only ordinary drug addicts, but also political opponents of Duterte. They were accused of involvement in the drug business and eliminated. The victims of the group were at least a thousand people.
Matobato said that he personally killed at least fifty people. The victims of the squadron took a terrible death. They were not only shot, but also hung, drowned in the sea, and even fed one crocodile to a man, Matobato. The former killer accused Duterte himself of committing bloody crimes. For example, according to the killer, his patron once shot a man from a submachine gun, who was listed as a secret agent of the police special services.
In the end, Matobato, who over the years, as he said, tormented remorse, decided to leave the ranks of the group. But they did not want to let him go. Finally, he left Davao with his wife, in September 2013. In 2014, he applied to the Commission on Human Rights. But in July, 2016, Duterte was elected president of the Philippines - and then Matobato again decided to hide. Only in September, 2016, he reappeared and appealed to human rights defenders. According to human rights activists, the militants of the Death Squad are capable of killing not only those who talk about their activities, but also their families and loved ones, including children. Therefore, Matobato is very risky. Until recently, the discussion of the activities of the group that existed in Davao did not reach the level of the Philippine parliament. Naturally, when Matobato spoke, representatives of the Philippine president rushed to refute all his words. Moreover, they stated that this investigation is the fruit of Leyla de Lima’s activity, which has long been digging under the Philippine president. He commented on the words of Edgar Matobato and the head of state himself. He stated that the testimony was simply the ravings of a mad man suffering from mental illness, and therefore they could not be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, it is necessary to look at these events from a different angle. The activities of Rodrigo Duterte are not to their liking in the Philippines. First of all, it is unhappy with corrupt and drug related officials who can lobby for their interests through individual parliamentarians. Duterte was never shy about expressions and promised to kill drug dealers and their accomplices, including government officials. Secondly, the activities of Duterte met with serious discontent abroad. First of all, we are talking about the negative reaction of the American side. The fact is that Duterte allowed himself a whole series of unflattering remarks about former President Barack Obama and about after the United States in the Philippines. Very rarely, the acting heads of state allowed themselves such words about the leadership of the United States and, moreover, Washington was not ready to hear them from the new leader of the Philippines, a country that had long been considered one of the key US strategic partners in Southeast Asia.
But even more negative for the Americans was the repeated words of Duterte that it was time for the Philippines to reorient itself toward cooperation with China and even Russia. Of course, it is extremely unlikely that Manila can really break off relations with Washington. But these words of Duterte could be a hint to the American leadership that he, too, is the head of a sovereign state and has the right to act as he sees fit. Of course, such a position of Rodrigo Duterte transformed him in the eyes of the American leadership into a “non grata” person who must be removed from power by any means. The first call was the repeated accusations by the American side of involvement in massive human rights violations. Although the United States itself sponsored and covered the activities of right-wing death squads throughout the twentieth century in Latin American and Asian countries. Criticism from the Philippine opposition, therefore, may simply be a way of putting pressure on Duterta by the Philippine political elite itself. The American government is capable of acting through its numerous agents among Filipino officials, deputies, politicians and public figures who will do what overseas patrons will tell them. Impeachment Duterte - only the most gentle that Americans can take to eliminate the person who caused their fundamental discontent.
In turn, the Philippine authorities themselves repeatedly accused Leila de Lim of collaborating with the drug mafia. Back in August 2016, Rodrigo Duterte himself stated that the senator allegedly had a connection with a certain Ronnie Dayan - de Lima driver, who was accused of transferring money from drug dealers to de Lima to lobby for their interests department of justice. Later, the President of the country supplemented his words with the statement that he had at his disposal the recording of telephone tapping of de Lima. Finally, in September 2016, supporters of Duterte managed to lobby for the removal of de Lima from the post of chairman of the Senate Human Rights Commission.
However, in December, 2016 de Lima's activities met with support from Western human rights defenders for its active opposition to Rodrigo Duterte in the practice of extrajudicial executions. It is noteworthy that the human rights defenders prefer to remain silent about the harm that the Philippines brings to the drug business. In the end, 17 February 2017, the administration of the President of the Philippines openly accused De Lim in connection with drug traffickers. She was accused of receiving multi-million dollar bribes from Filipino drug dealers in exchange for lobbying their interests at the government and parliamentary levels.
Duterte’s anti-drug activity is understandable. This is a great populist move to win the sympathy of the population. And, at the same time, it is difficult to blame the president for such actions. After all, the drug business really brought a lot of problems to the Philippines. Recently, the so-called spread in the country. “Shabu” is a cheap drug that costs meager money and makes it possible to stay awake for several days in a row. The 10% of adult Filipinos in the age from 16 to 64 were hooked up pretty quickly on shabu. This was facilitated by the beginning of a truly mass production of drugs. According to some information, the laboratories where synthetics are produced have even turned into cells in many Philippine prisons — with the total inaction of the guards, who received substantial sums of money for their silence. But endless slums of Manila and other Philippine cities, suffering from overpopulation and poverty, have become the real epicenter of the Philippine drug business.
Of course, most among drug addicts are young people. The distribution of synthetic drugs is a serious misfortune for the country. Young people are degrading, losing their human appearance, numerous crimes are being committed, organized crime is flourishing - and drug dealers are to blame for all this. There are anti-drug business and ethnic overtones - the mass media blame the criminal communities of huaqiao - immigrants from China, who traditionally play a large role both in legal and illegal business in many countries of South-East Asia. For enterprise and activity, the attitude towards huaqiao on the part of the indigenous people of the region is ambiguous. So, they repeatedly became victims of pogroms in the same Indonesia. Duterte decided to consolidate the nation in the fight against the drug business, since the “new war” also makes it possible to move away from many years of armed confrontation with the communist and Islamic radicals, who are waging a civil war in the country. With them, Duterte is just trying to establish interaction - and it is possible that he will enter history as the head of state who solved the problem with the armed opposition.
For obvious reasons, Duterte decided to enlist the support of ordinary Filipinos, and accused the real war of the drug mafia and drug addicts. Philippine police struggled for a long time with the drug trade, but could only achieve obvious success after Dutherte’s election. The former inefficiency was due to the fact that among the Filipino police there were a lot of employees associated with the drug mafia and who received monetary rewards from organized criminal groups.
Now the situation has changed. Firstly, General Ronald Rosa, who is considered the "right hand" of Duterte, stood at the head of the National Police of the Philippines. He spoke in support of tightening the fight against drug traffickers. By the end of August 2016, over 500 of thousands of Filipino drug addicts, many of whom were at the same time small dealers, surrendered to the authorities of the country. Secondly, the effectiveness of the anti-drug program Duterte provided just the actions of "death squads", cracking down on drug addicts. It was they who allowed Duterte at one time to completely clear the city of Davao, which he managed, from drug dealers.
However, opponents of Duterte pay attention to such an important nuance. At the head of almost all the "squadrons" are police officers who order to deal with those with whom it is profitable for them to finish. Of course, among the dead, almost everyone has one or another attitude to the drug trade, but human rights activists are wondering - aren’t these attempts being made to deal with competitors? After all, in the end, even if Duterte himself is an honest politician, he cannot control either the motivation or the personnel of the overwhelming majority of “squadrons,” which means that the same criminal groups may operate under the guise of government punishers. In addition, ordinary drug dealers and drug addicts are killed, who can lead the police to more senior figures in the “world of drugs”. And it is also beneficial just criminal gangs.
In any case, the situation in the Philippines is very interesting, if only from the point of view that no other country in the world has waged such a large-scale fight against drug trafficking by such methods. However, for now it can be said that Duterte’s efforts do not affect the true tip of the iceberg of the drug business, whose representatives may not even be located on the territory of the country itself.
Fifty-seven senator is considered one of the most principled opponents of Duterte. A lawyer by profession and a human rights activist by occupation, de Lima was born in 1959 and, after receiving a law degree, began her career in the Supreme Court of the country. By the way, what is interesting is that my dear aunt de Lima, Julie de Lima, is married to Jose Maria Sison, the permanent leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, whose armed wing, the New People’s Army, has been leading a partisan war against government forces for decades. But Leyla de Lima herself is more likely a liberal in her political views. She is a member of the Liberal Party of the Philippines.
According to de Lima, Duterte is guilty of the fact that he created and led the "death squads", which are cracking down on anyone suspected of involvement in drug trafficking. Back in 2012, an investigation was conducted against Rodrigo Duterte about his involvement in the massacres in the period from 2005 to 2009. At that time, as the report of the Philippine Human Rights Commission testified, the Death Squad of the city of Davao, the mayor of which the current president of the country worked, destroyed the 206 people. Of these, 107 people had criminal records or were suspected under criminal charges. The commission was headed by Leyla de Lima, who expressed dissatisfaction with the practice of extrajudicial executions.
15 September 2016 in the Philippine Senate listened to former professional killer Edgar Matobato, who confessed to involvement in numerous murders that he committed for twenty years while he was a member of the Death Squadron of Davao. The testimony given by Matobato in the Filipino Senate is truly impressive. If they are true, of course. According to Matobato, he became a Lambada Boys fighter in 1988. Then Rodrigo Duterte, who was the mayor of Davao for many years, attended to creating his own "power" unit. He created a group in which initially there were seven people. Formally, Edgar Matobato himself, like many other killers of the group, was issued by personal security guard Rodrigo Duterte and was listed as an operational officer of the Civil Security Directorate of the Davao City Hall.
The number of "Lambada", which became known as the "Death Squadron of Davao", gradually grew. Firstly, many wanted to have the patronage of an active and influential mayor of Davao, and secondly, drug dealers really use the hatred of normal Filipinos. Nevertheless, the "death squads" killed not only drug dealers and even not only ordinary drug addicts, but also political opponents of Duterte. They were accused of involvement in the drug business and eliminated. The victims of the group were at least a thousand people.
Matobato said that he personally killed at least fifty people. The victims of the squadron took a terrible death. They were not only shot, but also hung, drowned in the sea, and even fed one crocodile to a man, Matobato. The former killer accused Duterte himself of committing bloody crimes. For example, according to the killer, his patron once shot a man from a submachine gun, who was listed as a secret agent of the police special services.
In the end, Matobato, who over the years, as he said, tormented remorse, decided to leave the ranks of the group. But they did not want to let him go. Finally, he left Davao with his wife, in September 2013. In 2014, he applied to the Commission on Human Rights. But in July, 2016, Duterte was elected president of the Philippines - and then Matobato again decided to hide. Only in September, 2016, he reappeared and appealed to human rights defenders. According to human rights activists, the militants of the Death Squad are capable of killing not only those who talk about their activities, but also their families and loved ones, including children. Therefore, Matobato is very risky. Until recently, the discussion of the activities of the group that existed in Davao did not reach the level of the Philippine parliament. Naturally, when Matobato spoke, representatives of the Philippine president rushed to refute all his words. Moreover, they stated that this investigation is the fruit of Leyla de Lima’s activity, which has long been digging under the Philippine president. He commented on the words of Edgar Matobato and the head of state himself. He stated that the testimony was simply the ravings of a mad man suffering from mental illness, and therefore they could not be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, it is necessary to look at these events from a different angle. The activities of Rodrigo Duterte are not to their liking in the Philippines. First of all, it is unhappy with corrupt and drug related officials who can lobby for their interests through individual parliamentarians. Duterte was never shy about expressions and promised to kill drug dealers and their accomplices, including government officials. Secondly, the activities of Duterte met with serious discontent abroad. First of all, we are talking about the negative reaction of the American side. The fact is that Duterte allowed himself a whole series of unflattering remarks about former President Barack Obama and about after the United States in the Philippines. Very rarely, the acting heads of state allowed themselves such words about the leadership of the United States and, moreover, Washington was not ready to hear them from the new leader of the Philippines, a country that had long been considered one of the key US strategic partners in Southeast Asia.
But even more negative for the Americans was the repeated words of Duterte that it was time for the Philippines to reorient itself toward cooperation with China and even Russia. Of course, it is extremely unlikely that Manila can really break off relations with Washington. But these words of Duterte could be a hint to the American leadership that he, too, is the head of a sovereign state and has the right to act as he sees fit. Of course, such a position of Rodrigo Duterte transformed him in the eyes of the American leadership into a “non grata” person who must be removed from power by any means. The first call was the repeated accusations by the American side of involvement in massive human rights violations. Although the United States itself sponsored and covered the activities of right-wing death squads throughout the twentieth century in Latin American and Asian countries. Criticism from the Philippine opposition, therefore, may simply be a way of putting pressure on Duterta by the Philippine political elite itself. The American government is capable of acting through its numerous agents among Filipino officials, deputies, politicians and public figures who will do what overseas patrons will tell them. Impeachment Duterte - only the most gentle that Americans can take to eliminate the person who caused their fundamental discontent.
In turn, the Philippine authorities themselves repeatedly accused Leila de Lim of collaborating with the drug mafia. Back in August 2016, Rodrigo Duterte himself stated that the senator allegedly had a connection with a certain Ronnie Dayan - de Lima driver, who was accused of transferring money from drug dealers to de Lima to lobby for their interests department of justice. Later, the President of the country supplemented his words with the statement that he had at his disposal the recording of telephone tapping of de Lima. Finally, in September 2016, supporters of Duterte managed to lobby for the removal of de Lima from the post of chairman of the Senate Human Rights Commission.
However, in December, 2016 de Lima's activities met with support from Western human rights defenders for its active opposition to Rodrigo Duterte in the practice of extrajudicial executions. It is noteworthy that the human rights defenders prefer to remain silent about the harm that the Philippines brings to the drug business. In the end, 17 February 2017, the administration of the President of the Philippines openly accused De Lim in connection with drug traffickers. She was accused of receiving multi-million dollar bribes from Filipino drug dealers in exchange for lobbying their interests at the government and parliamentary levels.
Duterte’s anti-drug activity is understandable. This is a great populist move to win the sympathy of the population. And, at the same time, it is difficult to blame the president for such actions. After all, the drug business really brought a lot of problems to the Philippines. Recently, the so-called spread in the country. “Shabu” is a cheap drug that costs meager money and makes it possible to stay awake for several days in a row. The 10% of adult Filipinos in the age from 16 to 64 were hooked up pretty quickly on shabu. This was facilitated by the beginning of a truly mass production of drugs. According to some information, the laboratories where synthetics are produced have even turned into cells in many Philippine prisons — with the total inaction of the guards, who received substantial sums of money for their silence. But endless slums of Manila and other Philippine cities, suffering from overpopulation and poverty, have become the real epicenter of the Philippine drug business.
Of course, most among drug addicts are young people. The distribution of synthetic drugs is a serious misfortune for the country. Young people are degrading, losing their human appearance, numerous crimes are being committed, organized crime is flourishing - and drug dealers are to blame for all this. There are anti-drug business and ethnic overtones - the mass media blame the criminal communities of huaqiao - immigrants from China, who traditionally play a large role both in legal and illegal business in many countries of South-East Asia. For enterprise and activity, the attitude towards huaqiao on the part of the indigenous people of the region is ambiguous. So, they repeatedly became victims of pogroms in the same Indonesia. Duterte decided to consolidate the nation in the fight against the drug business, since the “new war” also makes it possible to move away from many years of armed confrontation with the communist and Islamic radicals, who are waging a civil war in the country. With them, Duterte is just trying to establish interaction - and it is possible that he will enter history as the head of state who solved the problem with the armed opposition.
For obvious reasons, Duterte decided to enlist the support of ordinary Filipinos, and accused the real war of the drug mafia and drug addicts. Philippine police struggled for a long time with the drug trade, but could only achieve obvious success after Dutherte’s election. The former inefficiency was due to the fact that among the Filipino police there were a lot of employees associated with the drug mafia and who received monetary rewards from organized criminal groups.
Now the situation has changed. Firstly, General Ronald Rosa, who is considered the "right hand" of Duterte, stood at the head of the National Police of the Philippines. He spoke in support of tightening the fight against drug traffickers. By the end of August 2016, over 500 of thousands of Filipino drug addicts, many of whom were at the same time small dealers, surrendered to the authorities of the country. Secondly, the effectiveness of the anti-drug program Duterte provided just the actions of "death squads", cracking down on drug addicts. It was they who allowed Duterte at one time to completely clear the city of Davao, which he managed, from drug dealers.
However, opponents of Duterte pay attention to such an important nuance. At the head of almost all the "squadrons" are police officers who order to deal with those with whom it is profitable for them to finish. Of course, among the dead, almost everyone has one or another attitude to the drug trade, but human rights activists are wondering - aren’t these attempts being made to deal with competitors? After all, in the end, even if Duterte himself is an honest politician, he cannot control either the motivation or the personnel of the overwhelming majority of “squadrons,” which means that the same criminal groups may operate under the guise of government punishers. In addition, ordinary drug dealers and drug addicts are killed, who can lead the police to more senior figures in the “world of drugs”. And it is also beneficial just criminal gangs.
In any case, the situation in the Philippines is very interesting, if only from the point of view that no other country in the world has waged such a large-scale fight against drug trafficking by such methods. However, for now it can be said that Duterte’s efforts do not affect the true tip of the iceberg of the drug business, whose representatives may not even be located on the territory of the country itself.
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