On July 22, 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. praised the successes of his anti-drug campaign in his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Manila. He referred to the arrest of 97,000 drug dealers and record quantities of seized illegal drugs worth 44 billion pesos. In addition, the number of barangays affected by illegal drugs has dropped to 32%. The President emphasized that his government is waging the so-called “war on drugs” in a “bloodless” manner, focusing on prevention, rehabilitation, and education. He also emphasized that the “extermination” of people in the course of his anti-drug campaign had never been part of this strategy.
However, this account contradicts documentations of further drug-related killings under Marcos Jr. Cristina Palabay, Secretary General of the Philippine human rights organization Karapatan, pointed out in an interview that Marcos Jr. has not yet overruled the Philippine National Police (PNP) Memorandum Circular 16-2016 (also known as “Project Double Barrel”), which forms the basis for the operationalization of the controversial “Oplan Tokhang” (“knock and plead”) practice. The documentation of drug-related killings by the Dahas Project of the University of the Philippines would show, as Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch explained, that the Marcos Jr. government has not put an end to former President Duterte’s “war on drugs.” According to Conde, the success of such a campaign should not only be measured by the absence of violence, but above all by accountability for serious human rights violations.
According to Daha’s documentation, there have been 748 drug-related killings since Marcos Jr. took office (as of August 12, 2024). According to an analysis by Asiatimes, the lack of official government statistics on drug-related killings reveals a “transparency problem,” making it appear that there are no killings under the current administration. Marcos Jr. also failed to mention the investigations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in his SONA. The government’s cooperation with the ICC is seen by civil society groups as an important step towards demonstrating the political will to distance itself from the human rights violations committed under former President Duterte.
Marcos Jr. also failed to mention the issue of press freedom in his SONA. In view of the unsolved extrajudicial killings of journalists and the increasing attacks on the press, media and human rights groups such as the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility called on the President to take concrete measures to protect journalists and press freedom, such as the decriminalization of libel and the passing of a Freedom of Information Act.
On the occasion of the PNP’s anniversary celebration on August 9, 2024, Marcos Jr. declared that police operations are now “as humane, truthful, and bloodless as possible.”
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