Operation “Double Barrel,” the police arm of President Rodrigo Duterte’s hotly debated drug war, has been suspended. Again.
Following up on a Duterte order made public yesterday afternoon that asks all agencies to leave anti-drug operations to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), police this morning confirmed that means them as well.
“Everybody is directed to adhere to the presidential directive,” Philippine National Police (PNP) deputy spokeswoman Chai Madrid said at a morning press conference.
When asked point blank if this meant Project “Double Barrel” was suspended, Madrid told reporters “yes,” according to online news outlet Rappler.
“Double Barrel,” which has faced a mountain of abuse allegations since its implementation, is the PNP’s pet project and has focused on both “high-level” drug targets (manufacturers, drug lords) and “low-level” street peddlers through “Oplan Tokhang.”
“Tokhang” is a blending of the Visayan words “toktok” (knock) and “hangyo” (plead), in which drug users and pushers are theoretically asked to surrender to local police, have their names listed, and asked not to do drugs or sell them again.
According to human rights investigators, many of the names on this list ended up becoming targets of vigilantes, or killed for “fighting back” in police-sanctioned anti-drug operations.
This is, in fact, the second time operation “Double Barrel” has been suspended. In January, the president ordered the PNP to step back and allow the PDEA to take the lead in the drug war following the death of South Korean national Jee Ick-joo, allegedly at the hands of police officials.
But just a month later, Duterte ordered police back into action, citing the resurgence of the drug trade on the streets.
This week’s memorandum, quietly signed by Duterte on Tuesday, stressed PDEA’s lead role in the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations as tasked under the anti-drug law, and mandates that other law enforcement agencies defer to the agency.
The clarification of the PDEA’s mandate aims “to bring order” to the campaign and “[pinpoint] precise accountability,” according to the memorandum.
It further stipulates that when an investigation being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the PNP or any ad hoc anti-drug task force is found to be in violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, “the PDEA shall be the lead agency.”
“The NBI, PNP or any of the task force[s] shall immediately transfer the same (investigation) to the PDEA,” the memorandum reads.
“I hereby direct the NBI, PNP, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Bureau of Customs, Philippine Postal Office and all other agencies or any and all ad hoc anti-drug task force[s] to leave to the PDEA, as sole agency, the conduct of all campaigns and operations against all those who, directly or indirectly, and in whatever manner or capacity, are involved in or connected with, illegal drugs,” the president said in his memorandum.
The memorandum also says that while police should still maintain visibility “as a deterrent to illegal drug activities”, it should leave to the conduct of anti-drug operations to the PDEA.
The government has many times defended Duterte’s war on drugs, which has claimed the lives of about 3,800 people in ostensibly legitimate police operations, according to official statistics.
Human rights groups, however, estimate that the death toll in the war on drugs could be as high as 13,000, a figure dismissed by the government as overblown.
PNP spokesman Dionardo Carlos recently said there were no cases of extrajudicial killings in the country, a statement derided by many as a game of semantics.
Duterte signed the memorandum in the wake of the release of recent survey results that showed a public lack of confidence in how police anti-drug operations were being conducted.
The survey, conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) in June, showed that 60 percent of Filipinos believe that only poor suspected drug pushers are being killed in the war on drugs.
According to the survey, most of those who agreed with the statement “rich drug pushers are not killed; only the poor ones are killed” were located in Metro Manila, at 48 percent, followed by Mindanao at 34 percent, Visayas at 31 percent and Balance Luzon at 29 percent.
The same SWS poll showed that a solid majority of Filipinos (63 percent) believe drug suspects are killed even after surrender.
The president’s memorandum also comes in the wake of a decline in his satisfaction and trust rating from 66 percent to 48 percent, according to an SWS survey conducted Sept. 23-27.
Critics attributed that drop to the government’s war on drugs, which in the past few months have seen police heavily criticized over the deaths of teenagers Kian Loyd delos Santos, Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo De Guzman, allegedly in suspicious operations.
The PDEA has a significantly smaller manpower and budget compared to the PNP.
The PNP has a budget solely for its anti-illegal drug operations worth PHP900 million (US$17 million), which forms part of its P131.3 billion (US$2.56 billion) proposed budget for 2018.
The PDEA, on the other hand, has a proposed PHP2.59 billion (US$50 million) budget for next year.
with reports from ABS-CBN News
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