(The following are excerpts from the "Position Paper on Extra-Judicial Killings As Means in the 'War on Drugs'" by the Center for Governance, Leadership and Development of the Department of Political Science of the University of San Carlos)

While the campaign against illegal drugs is a fight we all share, the relentless killings of persons allegedly linked to the illegal drug trade has raised an important question that every Filipino, regardless of social status, education, political beliefs, or religious affiliation, ought to confront: Are we doing this right?

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The United Nations yesterday urged the Philippine government to put an end to the current wave of extrajudicial killings in the context of an intensified campaign against crime and the drug menace.

Two UN human rights experts said "allegations of drug trafficking offenses should be judged in a court of law, not by gunmen on the streets."

The Philippine National Police reported yesterday that over 1,600 drug suspects have been killed since Duterte assumed power, with 665 attributed to PNP members and the rest to vigilantes.

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As of yesterday, Sen. Leila de Lima didn't look "destroyed," although she was clearly distressed and admitted feeling scared and concerned for herself and those close to her.

Lamenting the "abuse" and "misuse" of executive power, De Lima announced that her committee would proceed with its probe on Monday into the continuing killing spree. And if the administration is correct in its suspicions, no one is backing out either from efforts to bring the killings before the United Nations a possibility that seems to make the President fly into a fit of rage.

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The police service celebrated its 115th anniversary the other day as the Senate prepared to launch an inquiry into the spate of killings of drug suspects since President Duterte assumed power. The official toll, according to Philippine National Police officials, was 1,564 as of yesterday, with 899 attributed not to PNP members but to vigilantes.

Echoing the President, PNP officials have defended the mass killings, trotting out statistics to show that the crime rate has gone down. The homicide rate, of course, has soared and is sure to be the highest in this part of the world. Whether the victim was a drug dealer or law-abiding civilian, each killing must be probed and the perpetrator brought to justice.

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WE, THE Missionary Benedictine Sisters of the Manila Priory, express our grave concern about the culture of death creeping into our society and the rampant and open violations of human rights linked to the Duterte administration's war on illegal drugs.

At the outset, we state our condemnation of the drug trade that has not been properly addressed due to corruption, indifference and lack of political will. Powerful drug syndicates have succeeded in penetrating all levels of our society through bribery of corrupt public officials and law enforcers. This in turn has resulted in the corruption of our youth, the proliferation of heinous crimes, and the deterioration of the moral fabric of our society.

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IF JOSE Rizal were alive today, he would probably be found dead on a Manila street with a crude cardboard sign identifying him as a drug user. Rizal, after all, admitted taking hashish when he was 18 years old. But someone should explain to the trigger-happy police or vigilantes that in Rizal's time, hashish, which we know today as marijuana, "Mary Jane," or "jutes," was not what it is now: a prohibited drug. It was considered medicine and was dispensed freely from a drugstore.

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"Rise, above principle and do what's right." - Walter Heller

AS the famous Roman orator Cicero had written, "laws are silent in time of war," and Duterte's war against drug trafficking and its lethal effects on humans is total war.

The fight against drugs has become relentless, uncompromising, and nonnegotiable.

It is fatal and it affects all classes and all ages which call for a united and nationwide effort and urgency.

For these reasons, President Rodrigo "Digong" Roa Duterte should be given the leverage and space to pursue his crusade against drugs, corruption, and criminality unhampered by bureaucratic niceties and legalistic obstacles.

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President Duterte scored the United Nations yesterday for hitting his aggressive anti-drug campaign, which he said has so far claimed the lives of 1,000 drug addicts and pushers.

He complained that the UN is zeroing in on his administration's drug campaign when it was quiet on mass killings in other countries.

"While I really do not know who's going to come here for that, I am going to whack him in the head," Duterte said at the anniversary of the Philippine National Police at Camp Crame.

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We want to know what the young are thinking about.

What are their thoughts on current issues?

We welcome contributions from the twentysomething and below.- Ed.

HUNDREDS HAVE died and thousands have voluntarily surrendered to authorities in the course of President Duterte's war on drugs.

And though his violent and urgent campaign has done much to bring the issue to the national conversation, it also reveals how ill-equipped our legal infrastructure is in dealing with the victims of this war. The infrastructure required for the rehabilitation of drug users is lacking, and the way our law treats drug offenders is unfair and dehumanizing.

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PROTESTS are growing in the Philippines over President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal campaign against the drug trade.

Estimates of the numbers killed by police and vigilantes since Mr Duterte emerged as president-elect after the May 9 election vary between 650 and 1000.

The bloodied bodies of alleged drug dealers and users have been left on streets and in gutters, often with cardboard placards proclaiming their involvement in the drug trade.

Rights groups have condemned the killings and there have been protests recently at several schools and towns.

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This administration will be remembered for institutionalizing mass killings as the ultimate crime-fighting tool. Public acquiescence to the mass killings is among the most astonishing elements in this vicious war on drugs.

President Duterte, the architect of the crime-fighting strategy, may be glad to know that these days, when people are exasperated with criminality and even corruption and other forms of abuse in government, they ask why the crooks are still alive. "There oughta be a law" has been replaced with "they oughta be shot" - fatally, if possible.

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Unstopped, the silencing of surrendered pusher-addicts could worsen to vendetta against anti-narcotics operatives.

Vigilante killers are riding on, thus smearing Rody Duterte's war on drugs. They began striking, seemingly random, days after his May presidential win and worsened to almost daily after his June inaugural. The victims mostly were street pushers or addicted petty criminals from the slums.

Duterte theorized a motive even then. Narco-financiers, including politicos and cops, were silencing their own street pushers in anticipation of his crackdown. Very plausible, for the narco-trade has infested high office and society. The past administration not only had let the problem fester; the ruling party notoriously even had as treasurers a sequence of drug lords from Southern Tagalog.

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THE public is wondering how our government will respond or react to the statement issued on Friday, August 12, by the United States embassy in Manila, in which it expressed a number of concerns about certain statements made by President Duterte and the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings in the prosecution of the administration's war on drugs.

Before saying anything, our government must carefully take note that it is an embassy statement, not a statement of the US Department of State, which would make it an entirely different thing.

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Anti-illegal drug operations will be intensified in high-end clubs located at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig City following the arrest of three alleged drug traffickers last Saturday in Taguig and Pasig, the Southern Police District said.

Owners of upscale bars and nightclubs have been cooperative in the campaign against illegal activities, National Capital Regional Police Office ( NCRPO) director Chief Supt. Oscar Albayalde said yesterday.

Albayalde said owners of upscale bars and nightclubs are willing to sign a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine National Police ( PNP) allowing police operatives to conduct surveillance in their establishments.

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STORIES about shenanigans at the Cebu City Jail have been doing the rounds for years. Because the jail is being run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), tackling the complaints related to these "stories" has been dependent not on the local government officials but on a national government agency. For years, BJMP 7 officials tended to look the other way allowing those "stories" to persist.

The raid conducted early Saturday, done in full force by various law enforcement units, was thus a welcome development. It was called, like in previous raids, "Operation Greyhound" but it was an operation like no other before it in intensity and scope. No wonder it also netted the biggest catch in years.

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FORMER Cebu City Jail warden Johnson Calub and 28 senior jail guards will not be reporting to work today. Calub might even face an administrative case if there's proof he was "remiss in his duty." Meanwhile, a team of investigators from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology 7 Regional Investigation and Prosecution Division will subject the jail officers to an inquiry if there is enough basis to include them.

Hold on. Is this related to the discovery of P4,653,400 in cash, illegal drugs and appliances inside the facility? So what's with the "if he was 'remiss in his duty'" and "if there is enough basis to include them?"

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CHIEF Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Monday, August 15, that the Duterte administration is not tolerating the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug personalities and stressed that it was the drug suspects who are "killing each other."

"As far as we are concerned, the killings are being made by drug pushers themselves, killing each other," Panelo told reporters.

Panelo's statement came after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) had withdrawn its support on President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, saying it has "clearly become anti-people and anti-democratic."

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OFTENTIMES, debates do not end in resolutions nor do the arguments meet squarely. The problem lies not in the lack of logic but on the different paradigms the reasoning proceeds from.

Understanding the war on drugs require a proper paradigm, the paradigm of war.

Over the years, decades even, the drug situation has worsened. Drug addicts took marijuana and cough syrups. They walked in the streets and their profile as addicts are unmistakable: long hair, tattered pants, skinny, and untidy.

Overtime the addicts turn to synthetic drugs, most famous of which is "shabu." So too the profile of an addict: it has gone a massive transformation. For the untrained eye an addict maybe in your office without being noticed. They may even wear "barong" or coat and tie.

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We can rant all day about how dirty and bloody the current war on drugs has become, but we cannot deny the fact that only President Rodrigo Duterte has shown utmost resolve and political will to do battle with drug syndicates.

The illegal drug trade is just one of the tentacles of the underworld. According to law enforcement experts, revenues accrued from drug trafficking fund the criminal colony that is illegal gambling, human trafficking, white slavery, gunrunning, cybercrime and terrorism, not to mention sustaining the network of government officials who aid the illegal structure.

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What changed is that the socalled "war" on drugs is now taken most literally.

Our entire police organization seems entirely focused on the drug problem. Raids are conducted incessantly. Evidence is being collected against the so-called "drug lords" and their powerful protectors.

As all wars do, this effort produces a body count. It creates collateral damage, innocents harmed in the pursuit of powerful criminal gangs.

As all wars do, this one creates a fog: a climate of confusion where vigilantes jump into the action and where the criminals themselves start eliminating rivals. As the body count bloats, public resistance to the antidrug effort begins to build.

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