in my personal opinion, duterte is not the one who killed them directly. but he emboldened these police officers to apply and strengthen the law with regards to arresting suspects, intensify intelligence operations as to who are the pushers and users, and conduct more buy bust operations as well as arresting suspects.
for me, that is only applying the law and telling police officers to do their job. but the only fault duterte did was to announce to the whole world that he will kill those drug suspects and pushers. he has the propensity to badmouth like a cowboy telling everybody that he will shoot all the bandits when what he did in reality was to only issue directives and order police officers to intensify intelligence operations and conduct more arrest and buy bust operations. no actual killing but only paper directives (although he said he admitted killing a person before when he was a mayor).
with the lawful order of president duterte implemented by the police officers, it is really bloody. there is no pure diplomatic implementation of this directive to arrest pushers and conduct buy bust operations. the natural instinct of a criminal and worse, drug addicts, is to fight back.
you add the fact that drug addicts and users really have this sense of paranoia and are not of their right mind, these drug addicts with their unstable mind conditions would really fight back and be killed in the process. for the police officers , its either you get killed or you kill in applying the law.
as a whole, what duterte did was not deplorable. what is deplorable is if Philippines will become a narco state. as of now, the drug situation is now controllable, unlike before where almost 1/4 of the neighbors in the whole philippines either are drug users or drug pushers. it was so chaotic. but when duterte assumed office, there were so many drug users and drug pushers who have changed their ways for the better. some were killed when they were arrested and they fight back. but the point is, it is now relatively safe in almost areas in the philippines now that the drug problem is minimized.
davao used to be like that before duterte came to office. killing was so rampant. i was a little kid then like 8-10 years old. i see people being killed almost a week. we used to go to davao city and we see dead people on the streets when we go to movies. i saw a person killed also in maa, davao city. i saw a person killed in agdao, in claveria davao city. with an innocent mind, i really can understand the concept of killing even at a tender age. it was like a natural phenomenon here in davao city ( i am from the province but we go to davao city every week). when duterte came to office, he implemented the law, arrest the criminals and intensify the drug arrest operations. people get killed but those are collateral damage when you implement the law.
in just a few years, davao city became a tourist destination, known for its safe and clean environment. i saw change with my own eyes.
applying the duterte effect in the national setting, change is also felt in the national level. when people gets killed in the process, how come you only focus on the killings, and not on the law enforcement side? are we saying that in applying the law and arresting the criminals, we should not use force when the life of the police officers are on the line? when criminals fight back to evade arrest, there is really no choice but for the police officers to fight back. thus, killings are something that cannot be avoided when you implement the law. the problem with some western media is they focus on the killing side, and not on the implementation of the law side.. they sensionalize the killings even if the killings were done lawfully, and that is where the bad image of duterte is being painted. he is painted as a killer of thousands of people. but how come, 90% of the people in the whole philippines still love this bad guy named duterte? the answer is , they dont believe ABS-CBN , cnn, rapper and other western media . they believe the real story and they believe this commoner guy named duterte who delivers results and bring change.
are we saying that we should really avoid killing and let the drug dealers and users do their wanton killing ways unabated? how about the innocent children killed, girls raped , and other people killed? its still the same killing , but these time, its the innocent pople who are killed by these drug users and addicts. the killing is still there. are we for the counting of those criminals being killed because they fight back the policeman or are we for the counting of the innocent persons being killed by these drug killers? i chose the counting of these criminals and drug addicts being killed when they fight back upon being arrested, rather than the innocent killing of civilians by drug addicts.
what duterte is doing is the right thing. order the police officers to arrest the criminals, order the police to kill drug addicts if the drug addicts fight back, and solve the drug problems. for one drug addict /user being killed (only if they fight back), thousands of innocent lives are being saved. for every one drug addict /user that are being jailed, thousands of innocent lives are being saved. for every solution that duterte is doing in solving these drug problems, thousands of lives are being saved. my point is, apply the law, and kill those who will fight back. the important thing here is duterte is doing something to solve the problem while this drug problem is still manageable.
