• 7 Posts
  • 10 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: March 13th, 2022
  • zanghor123@lemmygrad.mltoGenZedong@lemmygrad.ml•Need advice dealing with dense Filipino parents
    1·
    2 years ago

    me:

    it’s mind boggling how easy people swallow imperalist propaganda.

    you

    like his really brutal anti-drug laws and punishments

    stop reading the nytimes.

    The drug war is an overwhelmingly popular policy in the Philippines. There is a dishonest attempt by western media to portray the drug war in the Philippines as situation similar to the US’s drug war, where poor segments of the population are singled out and targeted for possession of drugs like marijuana or crack and simply killed. This is not what’s happening, and this attempt is being spearheaded at the interests of Pharmaceutical capital, who rightfully see Duterte as a threat to their control over the Philippine market and in particular, their system of profit-by-opium-addiction.

    First, it’s important to remember the drugs we’re talking about are not “soft” drugs like marijuana that are plaguing Philippine society, but specifically opiates and methamphetamines. In the course of the drug war, nearly ₱60 billion of drugs have been seized, of which almost ₱50 billion is Shabu (meth). The criticism of the Philippine Police’s lack of drug classifications and therefor treatment of marijuana as being equal to meth or heroin is one which has not only been levelled by many Filipinos, but by Duterte himself – however, he retracted his bid for the legalization of marijuana for reasons I feel aren’t important enough to go into detail here.

    So, that being said, when the question “Why is Duterte’s war on drugs so bloody?” comes up, it must be understood that the addicts being dealt with – who are often armed – are not marijuana users, but users of harmful narcotics like meth. If you have ever encountered someone on meth or heroin in real life, you will immediately understand why this would pose a massive problem to society should addiction begin to take hold in large quantities. Whereas yes, 3,050 people have died in the course of the anti-drug operations, this must be juxtaposed with a resounding 1.2 million drug users admitted to rehabilitation facilities.