war on drugs

[ANALYSIS] Rethinking the Philippine’s drug policy

Raymund Narag

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[ANALYSIS] Rethinking the Philippine’s drug policy
'The President should consider commuting the life sentences imposed on PDLs who have maintained their innocence and did not plead guilty'

One year into the Presidency of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the after-effects of the drug war still linger.

Pre-2016, the average Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) jail population hovered around 90,000 Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs). It then rose to as high as 160,000 PDLs in 2019 and is currently at 130,000 PDLs as of 2023.

Many of these PDLs were convicted and transferred to Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) facilities, whose population rose from 40,000 in 2016 to 51,000 PDLs in 2023. This increase in PDL population was not matched by increases in jail and prison housing accommodations. Thus, our correctional system has the dubious recognition of being the most congested correctional system in the world.

Additionally, many of these drug arrestees also pleaded guilty for a lesser offense, based on the plea-bargaining ruling of the Supreme Court in 2017, which allowed drug arrestees to apply for probation. Thus, the Parole and Probation Administration (PPA) carried the main burden of the drug war: from a client population of 87,584 in 2016, their client population increased to 454,610 in 2020 (a whopping 520% increase!), and sadly, this population stays the same in 2023. The number of PPA personnel has remained constant, and in some regions, has even been reduced due to early retirement and resignations. One PPA officer handles as many 1,800 clients, which is the highest officer-to-client ratio in the world!

President Marcos should consider the growing empirical data that shows the drug war was based on faulty assumptions:

1. That there were many Filipino drug users (wrongly estimated at 7.8 million in 2019 or 7% of the Filipino population, while more accurate studies estimate it at 2%)

2. That many of the drug users are addicted (in fact, only around 5% of drug users are found to be dependent on drugs; majority are casual users and are fully functional)

3. That drug addicts are extremely violent (in fact, most drug dependents usually only harm themselves)

4. That the only solution is by killing them or putting them in prison for a very long time.

Countries that have waged brutal drug wars have shown that it only:

1. Exacerbates prison crowding

2. Increases the budget for jails and prisons that could have been used to support health, education, and other basic services

3. Increases public insecurity, given that the drug problem was only temporarily displaced, and the root cause of the problem was not addressed – and is now coming back with a vengeance.

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To address these problems, the following are recommendations from advocates and scholars who have investigated these concerns:

1. Shifting the drug policy to harm-reduction approaches. This approach looks at the drug problem as a medical, not a criminal justice, issue. If people are indeed dependent on drugs, there are proven and tested ways to help them address their dependency where harms are minimized, and they are still fully functional.

2. The President and Congress must support the modernization of the Parole and Probation Agency. The PPA is an agency that is best equipped to deal with the supervision and rehabilitation of drug dependents. They have the ability and capacity to effectively reintegrate drug offenders as responsible members of the community. However, they need additional manpower, facilities, and resources. Community-based corrections are also less costly.

3. The President should consider commuting the life sentences imposed on PDLs who have maintained their innocence and did not plead guilty. There are currently around 8,000 PDLs in BuCor prisons who were convicted over possessing less than one gram of shabu and were first-time, non-violent drug users. If they pled guilty during trial, the court would have handed them a penalty of not more than six years, which would have been probationable. Putting these individuals away for 30 to 40 years for a low-level drug offense will translate to a huge drain on the national budget.

These simple solutions will go a long way in rationalizing our drug policies and providing a sustainable, effective, and less costly approach to a manufactured problem. – Rappler.com

Raymund E. Narag, PhD is an Associate Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the School of Justice and Public Safety, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

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