‘War on drugs not antipoor’

The administration’s war on drugs is not antipoor, it just so happens that many drug users and peddlers come from marginalized sectors, according to Dangerous Drugs Board Chair Dionisio Santiago.

As of Aug. 29, 2017, a total of 3,811 “drug personalities” have been killed and 107,156 arrested in 70,854 antidrug operations, Santiago told reporters in Malacañang on Tuesday.

There were also politically motivated killings that have been wrongly attributed to the drug war, he said.

Santiago said those involved in illegal drugs tended to come from poor communities where numerous jobless Filipinos have been enticed to first use and then peddle illegal drugs to finance their habit.

“It is not antipoor,” he said. “It only seems antipoor because that’s the marginalized community, that’s what you will hit. Those who are pushing drugs are from the marginalized community.”

“If you are well-off, you would just be a user, you would not be a pusher. It’s exceptional for the rich to be pushers … Maybe they would finance it (drug trade),” he added.

Figures presented by Santiago showed that close to half, or 44.69 percent, of drug users admitted in rehabilitation centers in 2016 were unemployed. Their families’ average monthly income of P13,937 was more than the poverty threshold of P9,064. A significant number, 42.41 percent, come from Metro Manila.