P<\/span>hilippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s ruthless and bloody drug war \u2014 which began the day the strongman and former mayor took office last July \u2014 is steadily worsening.<\/p>\n As many as 12,000 people have been killed over the past 15 months, many of them dead at the hands of police or government vigilantes. Observers \u2014 including survivors and witnesses \u2014 say cops are conducting extrajudicial killings, murdering drug users or petty dealers in the street and in their homes. Police say that the dead are killed after violently resisting arrest.<\/p>\n Either way, Duterte condones the violence \u2014 proudly and publicly. \u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d Duterte said in August<\/a>, after the single bloodiest day of the conflict to date. (Among the dead was a local mayor, who Duterte had placed on a public list of \u201csuspects.\u201d) \u201cIf we can only kill 32 every day, then maybe we can reduce what ails this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawmakers aligned with Duterte are aiming to do just that. In budget moves this month, legislators voted to slash funding for drug rehabilitation, end the independent investigation into the killings, all while increasing funding for police by more than 40 times.<\/p>\n As Reuters reported,<\/a> the proposal to cut funding for drug rehabilitation by 75 percent would spell disaster. In a county of 100 million, fewer than 50,000 people received treatment for drug-abuse problems in 2016. As many as 3 million people in the country are drug users, Duterte has said. Meanwhile, increasing the police\u2019s budget by 40 times would guarantee a far larger police presence \u2014 one big enough to make a serious dent in the remaining 3 million people.<\/p>\n In a separate move, legislators aligned with Duterte have given the agency tasked with investigating the drug war<\/a> a mere 1,000 pesos \u2014 or about $20 \u2014 down from its current budget of 749 million pesos.<\/p>\n Along with the Catholic Church and a parade of international drug-policy and human-rights organizations, the Philippines\u2019 Commission on Human Rights has been one of the main critics of Duterte\u2019s lengthy and increasingly deadly drug war. Slashing its budget to next to nothing \u2014 a \u201creprehensible\u201d act, according to the United Nations\u2019 special envoy investigating the killings \u2014is a hamfisted vindictive move that Duterte allies didn\u2019t even bother to veil.<\/p>\n In the recent past, Duterte had vehemently criticized the commission and threatened to abolish it. \u201cIf you want to protect the rights of criminals, get your budget from the criminals,\u201d said House speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, a key Duterte ally, according to the Guardian.<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n Duterte is a populist strongman who bears strong resemblance to Donald Trump in thought and words, if not yet deeds. In leaked transcripts, the American president offered warm praise for Duterte\u2019s oversight of the bloody conflict. In Trump\u2019s estimation, Duterte is \u201cdoing an unbelievable job,\u201d said the president, who invited Duterte to visit the White House.<\/p>\n Duterte rebuffed the invitation, calling the U.S. \u201clousy.\u201d That\u2019s a dis, but it shouldn\u2019t steer attention away from Trump \u201cessentially endor[sing]\u201dthe killings. Trump is \u201cmorally complicit\u201d in future deaths, flabbergasted human-rights organizations said<\/a> \u2014 and after these latest moves by Duterte allies to make the war easier to wage with fewer oversight, there will absolutely be more. Many, many more.<\/p>\n TELL US, <\/strong>are you following the news about the War on Drugs in the Philippines?<\/p>\n The post Philippine Drug War Set to Reach New Depths<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Anti-drug raids are killing thousands in the Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s ruthless and bloody drug war \u2014 which began the day the strongman and former mayor took office last July \u2014 is steadily worsening. As many as 12,000 people have been killed over the past 15 months, many ofContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,80,95,731,81,1356,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19450,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19449\/revisions\/19450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Philippine Drug War Set to Reach New Depths<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"