Government Abuse & Tyranny: Philippines & Violence

We always love to give voice to our community, and in a recent pitch, we asked our community to let us know if they ever experienced governmental abuse or oppression.

One of the respondents was Nemonasa, the writer of our recent article on Beefy Finance.

If you want to read his story, then read below for his thoughts. Do excuse the occasional typo, as Nemo isn't a native English speaker, but has put his heart into this.

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Here's The Rundown: Nemonasa's Experience

In the wake of the 2015 Philippines election, an eccentric strong man and a breath of fresh air emerged top in the survey. Then an outspoken mayor from Davao City, a southern city in the Mindanao peninsula, pledged to solve the country's drug problem within the first 3 months of his term if he would be elected as president.

It is his campaign slogan that we would drench the famous Manila Bay with the blood of those involved in the drug trade. Then came the Philippines election in May 2015 and it was a landslide victory for Duterte for he leads on more than 6 million votes against his nearest rival then DILG Secretary Mar Roxas the ruling party candidate.

Even before Duterte took office on June 30, 2016, the execution of a suspected drug suspect began as if it was a premonition of what had to come under the rule of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte immediately appointed Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa as the country's Chief of Police for Duterte known Bato way back then as a strong implementer of the infamous “Oplan Tokhang” in Davao City. Bato immediately carried out the wishes of Duterte to get to work as the result of the “war on drugs” that has led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date, mostly urban poor.

At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed to the Philippine National Police. Duterte and other senior officials have instigated and incited the killings in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity.

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Violence in Full Swing? Cheap Homicides...20 Php!

The Philippine Police headed by Bato Dela Rosa has been very effective in implementing their strategy to combat drugs just to give Duterte a result on whatever it may take to lead them for they have the full backing of the President. The alleged extrajudicial killing of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines is now in full swing for the president always calls out to shoot individuals who are involved in drugs because he reasons if the suspect is just trialed for his alleged crime, he would just go back out in the street after 3 months and be back as business as usual as if you shoot a guy it would only cost the government 20 Php.

Just for the sake of good results, some Philippine Policemen are being accused of trying to falsify evidence so that they can have the suspect nabbed or gunned down. An example of that is the case of a certain teenage boy - Kian Loyd Delos Santos - who was fatally shot by police officers conducting that said drug operation. Kian was only a 17 years old student who is just playing basketball on his community court when two police officers dragged him to a dark alley and shot him to death, the officers then planted a .38 caliber pistol and a sachet of meth for the purpose that the boy is resisting and then engage on a gun shoot-out with them. The three policemen involved in this incident have been found guilty of murder in this high-profile case.

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Extra-Judicial Killing - Approved by the Big Man:

 Duterte's anti-drug campaign, the alleged extrajudicial killing of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users would go down as a dark time for the Philippines, for the Philippine government headed by President Duterte overused its power for the repeated death threats against those involved with illegal drugs. The sad part of this article is that there are still so many pending cases of extrajudicial killings, Official government figures last year put that number at nearly 6,000 while Human rights organizations claim more than 20,000 have been killed since 2016. When would justice come for the families of the victims?

 Duterte's War on Drugs: To Each, Their Opinion.

My thoughts on “The Philippines Government/Duterte’s” War on Drugs, is that it was very wrong from the start for all the big brains behind the operation; they just execute human beings just to have a presentable graph to be shown for Duterte. These law officers overuse their power to disregard human lives just to execute the government campaign on drugs. The Philippine congress even tried to abolish its own Philippine Commission of Human Rights by giving a budget of 1000 Php for the year 2018. 

I voted for Duterte in the hope of change and the promise of eradicating corruption on all levels. History tells otherwise for Filipino people still linger in an uncertain future with inflation and unemployment at an all-time high.

Hope to find a job soon to help my country's economy.
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We thank Nemonasa for his thoughts on this issue and hope you guys enjoyed reading about his opinion as well!

Again, please do excuse the occasional typo, as obviously the writer isn't a native English Speaker.