Pulse Asia: Nearly 9 of 10 Filipinos back war on drugs

A majority of Filipinos believe that extrajudicial killings (EJKs) mar the Duterte administration’s war on drugs, although most of them still support the campaign, according to a nationwide survey by Pulse Asia.

The survey, conducted in the last week of September, found that 73 percent of respondents believed policemen or soldiers committed the EJKs — an increase from 67 percent in June. Despite this, 88 percent supported the campaign against illegal drugs.

The poll used face-to-face interviews with 1,200 adults as respondents and had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

In the wake of the survey results, Director General Ronald dela Rosa of the Philippine National Police insisted that the drug war deaths were not technically considered EJKs.

EJK meaning disputed

“We are not denying that,” Dela Rosa said of the killings. “The thing is, we dispute the meaning of EJK.”

Like other officials, the PNP chief cited Administrative Order No. 35, issued by then President Benigno Aquino III in 2012, in limiting EJKs to the deaths of journalists or people affiliated with advocacy or political groups.

For Dela Rosa, the term “EJK” was just being “implanted in the minds of the public” by critics of the human rights abuses and killings in the Duterte administration’s antidrug campaign.

Alarm

President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature campaign has killed thousands of Filipinos and caused international alarm amid widespread allegations by activists that police are executing suspected drug users and dealers.

Police authorities reject such allegations, saying every one of the more than 3,800 victims in antidrug operations were killed because they were armed and violently resisted arrest.

Malacañang said it was pleased with the survey results showing that 88 percent of Filipinos supported the war on drugs.

In a statement, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the results showed that the public appreciated administration efforts to crack down on crime.

Abella said it was understandable that 73 percent of the respondents in the survey believed that EJKs occurred in the campaign against illegal drugs “given the massive media coverage of the Caloocan youth killings during the survey period.”

Aware of Kian’s death

The Pulse Asia survey found that 94 percent of the respondents were aware of the case of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos, who was killed by Caloocan police officers in a drug raid on Aug. 16.

The police claimed Kian fired at them, but he was seen on a security camera footage being dragged by the police toward a dead-end street where he was later found dead with bullet wounds.

Seventy-six percent of respondents who were aware of Delos Santos’ case expressed worry that what happened to him could also happen to them or their family members.

The survey comes amid unprecedented scrutiny of the war on drugs and several opinion surveys by another pollster that indicated dwindling trust in police accounts of operations, and whether victims were indeed all drug dealers as police maintain.

Mr. Duterte last week ordered police to withdraw from the antinarcotics campaign and leave all operations to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) following scrutiny of police conduct.

Retire now

He noted fewer killings in operations of the PDEA, an agency a fraction of the size of the police, and said he hoped critics and “bleeding hearts” would be satisfied by his decision.

In the House of Representatives, an opposition lawmaker said Dela Rosa should retire now rather than wait for January 2018.

Akbayan Rep. Tom Villarin said Dela Rosa “has brought down the PNP to such shame and low esteem, bringing down to the gutter its credibility.”

He added that the slight increase in Filipinos believing in EJKs was a “complete rejection of the official narrative that the victims had resisted” and the police were “just doing their job.” —REPORTS FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH, VINCE F. NONATO, PHILIP C. TUBEZA