Philippines Orders Pursuit of Small-Time Drug Dealers in Policy Shift After Duterte

Manila, June 2 (EFE).- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the police on Monday to pursue small-time drug traffickers, in a significant policy shift since he promised to focus only on major criminals upon taking office in 2022, after the bloody war on drugs of former President Rodrigo Duterte. “Let’s continue to seize drugs and ensure that drug traffickers and drug lords are pursued. Likewise, let’s continue to monitor our communities so that even small-time drug traffickers are not safe,” Marcos Jr. urged during the inauguration of the newly appointed Police Chief, Nicolas Torre III.

The new head of the Police, who gained national notoriety for executing the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Duterte last March, urged the security forces under his command to increase the number of arrests.

“If you are truly good cops, you won’t let these criminals get away with it. And there’s only one way to do it. Arrest them,” he said.

Both Marcos Jr. and Torre urged respect for the law and human rights. Both sought to distance themselves from Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, in which, according to police figures, 6,000 people died in operations and extrajudicial killings between 2016 and 2022, although local non-governmental organizations raise the figure to 30,000.

“Remember, the people you detain have to stay alive. Do not shoot or kill them, human rights are still in effect,” Torre said.

Despite calls not to kill suspects, Marcos Jr.’s announcement marks a change of course in what he described at the beginning of his term in 2022 as a “bloodless war on drugs”.

The president then stated that he was not interested in small drug traffickers, but only in large distributors and sellers. “Look, I’m not interested in the kid who earns 100 pesos (about 1.8 dollars) a week selling marijuana,” he said in September 2022 during an official trip to the United States.

Organizations like Amnesty International (AI) have denounced abuses and arbitrary detentions within the framework of the war on drugs in the Philippines under the Marcos Jr. government.

The Dahas project, from the University of the Philippines, on the other hand, seeks to deny that these operations occur “without bloodshed,” as the authorities claim. According to the latest figures from this project, the Asian country has recorded 983 drug-related deaths since Marcos Jr. came to power in 2022.

Not only did their number increase between June 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024 (date of the latest Dahas annual report) compared to the previous same period, but the organization stated that state agents were responsible for 34.2% of the killings.