Police authorities in Calabarzon province, south of Metro Manila, have begun marking drug-free homes with stickers saying “Drug-free home for a better Philipines,” though rights groups had already slammed a similar plan previously floated then abandoned by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
When the idea was first touted earlier this year, Amnesty International was quick to point out the seemingly ominous implications of choosing not to sport one of the friendly looking, multi-colored stickers.
“What does it mean if one does not have a sticker?” the group asked at the time, comparing the effort to a “state-sponsored witch hunt” and decrying it as an “invasion of privacy.”
The project urges members of the community to join the police in the fight against illegal drugs.
Mga bahay na cerified drug-free ang mga nakatira sa CALABARZON, minamarkahan ng PNP pic.twitter.com/FNoYnKNn1U
— Noel S. Alamar (@NoelAlamarDZMM) June 14, 2017
Regional Director Chief Superintendent Mao Aplasca said that the project was launched in Liliw town in Laguna because it is one of the towns which has been certified drug-free by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Seven hundred and forty six of the 2,690 barangays (villages) in the region has been certified drug-free by the PDEA.
Aplasca urged local government units to help the Philippine National Police in keeping their areas drug-free.
The sticker program is being rolled out amid an ongoing “war on drugs” launched by President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, which has seen, to date, 2,679 “drug dealers” shot by police and at least 5,000 more believed to have been killed by vigilantes.
