TAGUIG CITY, Philippines — The administration of President Rodrigo Duterte continued to believe rehab could unlock the “human potential” of drug addicts even if Duterte’s war on drugs had already claimed the lives of more than 5,500 people, mainly drug suspects, according to Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano.
During a visit to this city’s jail, Cayetano said the high death toll in the war on drugs did not mean the administration was abandoning the option of rehabilitating addicts.
His statement appeared to run counter to Duterte’s repeated rant about addicts’ brains being cooked by drugs and having no hope for recovery.
“The marginalized in our country are sometimes forgotten, especially now that there’s a drug war,” Cayetano said before a visit to the city jail a day after his 49th birthday.
“Some think there’s no more hope or we’re abandoning those in jail. No,” he said in Filipino.
“We still believe in rehabilitation. We believe that although detention is punishment, its intention is to rehabilitate, to return to society,” he said.
“The problem with too congested jails is that rehab projects are difficult,” he added.
Cayetano also repeated government claims that those killed in anti-drug operations had resisted arrest, or “nanlaban.”
“The ones that the President was talking about, those are the ones who fought back,” he said. “That’s different,” he added.
“If it’s the life of the enforcer versus the life of a person selling drugs, of course we choose the life of the enforcer. But if the enforcer can save the life of the person and try to rehabilitate, why not?” he said.
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The House leader also said he believed Duterte’s dare to Vice President Leni Robredo to carry out the anti-drug campaign for six months was out of “exasperation” over the gravity of the problem. This does not mean passing on the responsibility to Robredo, Cayetano said.
“It’s his desire to solve this problem, his love for the country, but his exasperation that the drug war is so entrenched,” he added./TSB