MANILA, Philippines -- Three American senators asked the US Department of State to explain the use of funding aid in the Philippines to make sure the money is not being used for the government's war on drugs.

US Senators Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Christopher Coons (D-Delaware) have expressed grave concern over alleged extrajudicial killings and human rights violations in the country under the President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-narcotics campaign.

"The Philippine anti-drug movement known as Project [Tokhang] in fact appears to be a campaign of mass atrocities thinly disguised as a response to a public health emergency," the senators said in a letter addressed to US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Assistant Secretary William Brownfield.

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Authorities in the Philippines say a series of drugs raids have netted nearly a tonne of methamphetamine, with a street value of UKP#120m ($147m).

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said the haul was the biggest in the country's history.

Mr Aguirre said 10 people had been charged.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has pursued a bloody war on drugs since taking office six months ago, encouraging police to shoot on site.

More than 6,000 drug users and dealers are suspected to have been killed by both police and vigilantes since the crackdown began.

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Hooded killers have turned the bloody anti-illegal drug war of the Duterte government into an art form.

That's no exaggeration. One stark evidence is the front-page photograph by Raffy Lerma -- a sidestreet Filipino Pieta -- that shows a grieving wife, rain-soaked and in rags, cradling her bloodied freshly murdered husband.

This picture also threatens to be the emblem of the Duterte regime's deathly drive against illegal drugs.

Last weekend, this grim theme dimmed a bit with the start of the dawn masses, the Simbang Gabi, that also ushered in the official period of holiday caroling, a season of good tidings.

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SECRETARY of Justice Vitaliano N. Aguirre II surmises that the government is winning its controversial war on drugs as he, together with officials of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), presented yesterday evidence of what he called the "biggest drug bust" so far in the country.

"Malamang sa malamang, nananalo na tayo. (It's more than likely, we are winning)," the secretary told reporters when asked for his assessment on whether the government is winning in its drug campaign that has been strongly criticized for the alleged rise in extra-judicial killings that it has spawned.

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Dagupan City's War On Drugs

THERE are still 26 barangays deemed drug-clear, and five more to be worked on, the list has been changed and corrected by City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez, as chair of the City Anti-Drug Abuse Coordinating Council (CADACC).

Mayor Belen Fernandez, as chair of the City Anti-Drug Abuse Coordinating Council (CADACC) signed the certification affirming earlier declarations by the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Councils that their respective villages are now cleared of illegal drugs.

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At 4:50 a.m., the stragglers dashed through Manila's darkened streets, hoping for a spot in the pews.

But they were too late. Hundreds of worshipers had already packed the Sto. Nino de Paz Community Greenbelt Chapel, a low, white dome in a sprawling outdoor shopping complex, for Friday's Simbang Gabi Christmas Mass.

So at least 100 more crowded on the pavement outside, singing "Glory to God" beneath a crisp crescent moon.

Christmas in the Philippines is a long, spirited and, to many, exhausting affair. About 90% of Filipinos are Christian, and they take the holiday seriously. Stores start playing Christmas music as early as September and don't stop until early January. Christmas trees spring up in malls and public parks. Carolers go door to door singing "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night" and "Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit", a lively Tagalog tune celebrating Jesus' birth. The holiday delicacy is lechon - -- whole suckling pig, a Filipino delicacy.

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MANILA - Rayzabell Bongol, an 18-year-old mother and methamphetamine user, was afraid to die in President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs in the Philippines. So she turned herself in to the police. They made her sign a pledge that she would never take illegal drugs again, then sent her home.

Once a week now, she is expected to attend a police-sponsored Zumba dance workout, where she gets a health check and a meal. Mr. Duterte "promised change," she said at a recent class as three dozen other recovering addicts bopped and swayed to a blaring Latin beat. "As you can see, I am changing."

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HOWEVER you put it, the Philippine National Police is among the government agencies responsible for the proliferation of illegal drugs in the country-either by direct involvement or sheer ineffectiveness.

Strange enough, the law enforcers who gained notoriety for protecting drug cartels and syndicates in the past are now earning praises for killing drug suspects at will-in the name of a "drug war." Do you really want to vindicate and encourage the police to further abuse its power while the unjust social system prevails?

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IT'S EASY: Start with semantics.

Step 1: Establish a consensual value system to shape a receptive audience. A consensual value system is composed of a repertoire of values everyone is willing to accept. It aims to be universal as well as encompassing by differentiating a set of favorable values from those unpalatable to the audience. We desire a drugfree Philippines. Who doesn't?

Values legitimize a political action (be it human rights intervention or extrajudicial killing) by leading their audience to perceive coherence in their binary arrangement.

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IT'S A mantra that top government officials keep chanting: Police killings enjoy a presumption of regularity.

This mantra is used in answer to voices of protest when someone is killed by police under suspicious circumstances, such as when an arrested suspect is killed inside a police car for allegedly attempting to grab an officer's gun. This mantra is increasingly being heard as response to criticism against the mounting number of people killed by police in the administration's war on drugs. A total of 929 people have been killed during police operations from July 1 to Aug. 31.

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Just like in the movies, but this is real life.

President Duterte admitted he takes inspiration from Western action movies like "Dirty Harry" in waging his bloody war on drugs that has raised concern among the United Nations, the United States and human rights advocates.

Duterte's revelation came just hours before a blast ripped the Roxas night market in his hometown Davao City that killed 14 and injured more than 60 people.

Answering queries from Michael Sullivan of the National Public Radio Washington, Duterte related the movie "Dirty Harry" with the killings of sus-pected drug pushers, particularly those killed by vigilante groups.

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LINGAYEN-DAGUPAN Archbishop Socrates Villegas has urged Filipinos to speak up against the spate of killings targeting suspected criminals rather than remain comfortably silent.

In a pastoral message, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) head reminded the faithful that "What you do or not do for the least of your brethren, you do to Christ."

The message was to be read today in all churches under the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan in lieu of the Sunday homily.

"If you agree with us that killing suspected criminals is a crime and a sin itself, why do you just stay seated there in comfort keeping quiet? Whatever you do or not do for the least of your brethren, you do to Christ," Villegas said.

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Aside from nightclubs and bars, authorities are setting their sights on condominium dwellers and call center agents in Metro Manila in the next phase of the war on drugs.

National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) director Chief Supt. Oscar Albayalde said they are investigating reports that drug pushers are using condominium dwellers and call center agents in their illegal transactions.

Albayalde noted that the two groups could evade police detection because many call center agents work at night while condominiums are usually well secured against unwanted visitors. "I've ordered the five district directors to step up the implementation of Oplan Tokhang and Project Double Barrel in condominium units, business process outsourcing ( BPO) offices in Metro Manila," Albayalde said.

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte could face international criminal charges as the death count in his relentless war on drugs tops almost 2000, human rights advocates say.

Comments by the tough-talking former provincial mayor such as "all of you are into drugs, you sons of bitches ... I will kill you" could be used as evidence to prosecute him, they say.

Sam Zarifi, from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), says it is likely that as the killings continue lawyers will gather evidence to initiate legal proceedings against Mr Duterte, as 9541 victims of the late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos did in the United States in the 1990s.

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As the casualties in the government's war on drugs continue to pile up, the Philippines faces a "human rights calamity," according to Human Rights Watch.

Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Asia deputy director, said at an ABS-CBN News Channel forum on human rights Tuesday night that the number of suspects killed in the hands of police in the first eight weeks of the Duterte administration is 10 times higher than those who died in the first six months of the year.

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President: US Leader Must First See Context

PRESIDENT Duterte yesterday said he was ready to defend his take-no-prisoners war on drugs in a discussion of the human rights situation in the Philippines with US President Barack Obama in Laos next week.

Mr. Duterte said he was willing to meet with Obama on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meeting in Vientiane on Sept. 6, but he would demand that he be allowed to first explain the context of his merciless crackdown on the illegal drug trade before engaging the US leader in a discussion of the human rights situation in the Philippines.

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The United Nations is only paying lip service to the fight against illegal drugs and is even prejudging the involvement of law enforcers in summary executions of suspected drug offenders, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said on Monday.

"The UN is just making mere lip service, stymied by the most vocal who seem to protect the illegal drugs trade," Yasay said.

"This is the kind of frustration we must express. We must also understand the UN is not the solution but we must all be active participants," he told journalists at the Japan-ASEAN Media Forum at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City.

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DID "The Punisher" just own up to the killing of druggies?

President Duterte has admitted the government's lack of funds for the rehabilitation of drug dependents had led to the deaths of suspected drug lords.

Since he assumed the presidency on June 30, almost 2,000 alleged drug pushers and users had died in police operations and vigilante killings.

Speaking before members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) in Malacanang Monday night, the President said his administration did not have the money to finance recovery programs for some 700,000 drug users who had turned themselves in to police.

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CEBU CITY - The Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) has intensified its campaign against illegal drugs with the launching of Oplan Pokemon, the police version of the popular mobile phone game.

Just like the popular mobile phone app game, where players go to places to catch Pokemon monsters, Oplan Pokemon calls for the local police to go to different areas to look for those involved in the illegal drugs trade.

The CCPO marked its first operation under Oplan Pokemon with a convoy of patrol cars and funeral hearse.

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ILOILO CITY - Church and religious groups have decried the surge in killings of suspected drug pushers and have called on the faithful to "defend the dignity of life."

Fr. Marco Sulayao, chair of Promotion of Church People's Response (PCPR) on Panay Island, said while religious people support the eradication of illegal drugs and rehabilitation of drug dependents, these should be done without the "wanton" killings of suspected drug pushers.

He said there has been no significant outcry because of the people's desire to get rid of illegal drugs, which have victimized many, especially the youth.

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