Front Burner - Duterte, the drug war and the Philippines’ future

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

This week, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his final state of the nation. He’s been called the “vigilante president” for his handling of the illegal drug trade, and his treatment of dissenters. Today on Front Burner, veteran investigative journalist Sheila Coronel reflects on what his legacy might mean for the future of the Philippines.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud, in for Jamie Poisson. Gone are the days when the Philippines decides and acts in the shadows of the great powers. We will assert what is rightfully ours and fight for what is rightfully due to the Filipino people.

Earlier this week, Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, delivered his sixth and final State of the Nation address. In the over three-hour speech, he boasted about raising salaries for the military and police. He lamented how COVID-19, quote, stole everything from an economy that was supposed to grow. And he talked a lot about the drug war, which has been his big priority the last five years. This problem has hounded our country for several decades, destroying families and degrading the moral fiber of our society. His campaign to stop the flow of illegal drugs in the country has drawn concern from human

rights groups all over the world. It's suspected that tens of thousands have been murdered in extrajudicial killings. Duterte has also been heavily criticized for suppressing freedom of expression and of the press. Today, as Duterte's time in office winds down, we look back at his time in power. Sheila Cornell will be my guest. She has been covering Duterte and the war on drugs in the Philippines for years. She's also the director of the Tony Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia.

at Columbia. who he is as a politician? I would say it was during the election campaign in 2016 when he ran for the presidency and he went around the country talking about himself and who he is. And there is a story that he liked to tell, which is the story about how when he was in law school, he had a classmate who was always teasing him about his provincial accent. Duterte comes from a political family, but he comes from the southern part of the country, and he was in school in Manila. And so people from that part of the country have sort of a southern accent. And a classmate was making fun of him. And as he told the crowds during the campaign, he shot this classmate. The classmate survived, but he intended to give the classmate a lesson. And he would end that story by saying, I'm used to killing people.

And people would laugh. And that's, I think, the genius of Duterte, because you don't know if he's joking, if he's telling the truth. In fact, the story did happen. But it sort of shows his appeal, you know, his broad appeal to people that here he was being insulted for the part of the country that he comes from, from not being sophisticated enough, for not being cosmopolitan enough. And he taught this guy a lesson. So it was like a lesson about standing up. I hear that story. And I can't imagine an audience laughing unless you unless you're in on the joke, which is like, I guess to say, you think that person is joking, but

you have met Duterte before. What was your first impression of him? Well, Duterte in person is quite charming. You know, he is very informal, very casual and easygoing. And this is his genius because he'll joke about, you know, killing, about shooting. And you think it's a joke. But then when you think deeper, maybe it's not. It's hard to explain, but that's how it comes off i killed about three of them because there were three of them i i didn't really know how how many bullets from my gun went through inside their bodies but it it happened and i said i cannot lie about it because but if it means now he was a prosecutor and as you mentioned he was a prosecutor, and as you mentioned, he was the mayor of Davao City.

But when he rose to power, he rose to power as selling himself as this sort of strong man, as someone who's very comfortable with power in that way. I mean, his campaign logo was a clenched fist. What was the appeal of that in 2016 when he actually, when he got elected? I think in 2016, it was 30 years after the fall of Marcos. 27 years after he died in exile, the Marcos legacy remains controversial. Here's why. He ruled under martial law for most of his 20 years in power. His dictatorial regime is accused of widespread human rights abuses, including killing 3,000 opponents

and torturing tens of thousands of others. A government commission estimates the Marcos family and their allies stole $10 billion from Filipinos. So we've had 30 years of democracy, and there was a lot of dissatisfaction with how, you know, liberal elites had run the country. There was dysfunction, there was corruption, there was a sense that the country was adrift. And there was some sort of nostalgia for someone. I mean, I've talked to communities that have been affected by Duterte's policies,

including the killings related to the drug war. And many of those people voted for him. And then when I asked them why, they say, because we feel we need an iron hand. We need some discipline. And Duterte played up the threat of crime and drugs. And he succeeded in projecting himself as the kind of leader who would tamp down crime, who would put an end to drug dealing, who would be strong and would not be like the feckless liberals

that had ruled the country in the past. My campaign against drug will not stop until the last pusher and the last drug lord are killed. Now, you mentioned Marcos, he was in power until the 80s. And then we get to Duterte, and there are these stories of him, you know, patrolling the city, riding a motorcycle, carrying a gun, fulfilling all of these ideas of this sort of vigilante, protector, savior kind of type.

Talk to us about the gap that makes that kind of figure appealing. Well, even before he became president, Duterte around the country had sort of this mythic sort of noir aura. You know, he was this oozy slinging mayor on board his big Yamaha motorbike patrolling the streets of his city at night. He would go to the slums to personally warn delinquent youth and their parents to shape up or else. And then some of those people will end up dead, and it was their fault for not heeding his warnings. If the criminals there are killed by the thousands, that's not my problem.

My problem is how to take care of the law-abiding, God-fearing young persons of this republic because they are our resources. So in the words of a human rights investigator who looked at the so-called Davao death squad, you know, that investigator said the death squad delivered justice on wheels. So there was like people were starving for justice. It reminds many of Duterte's record in his hometown of Davao, the city he's ruled as mayor for 22 years. Here, more than a thousand suspected criminals have been killed by death squads linked to police and local officials by UN investigators.

You must understand that Davao City at that time was known as the laboratory for both insurgency and counterinsurgency. It was the murder capital of the Philippines. People would, you know, I have friends who would talk about going to school at that time, and there would be corpses along the way, along the way to school. So, and people of Davao welcomed somebody who would be able, you know, like, it was like the Wild West, the sheriff, who would be able to restore order and peace. And even if that sheriff took shortcuts, even if that sheriff killed people. So Duterte was accepted as going to extreme measures to be able to protect his city. And this sort of punisher-protector image was very appealing to the people of Davao

who had him for mayor for more than 20 years. When he stood for the presidency in 2016, that was the image that he had. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Now, he now has less than a year in office left. And I want to talk about the most controversial and dominant part of his legacy. And that's the drug war in the Philippines. He was elected largely on this promise of eradicating drug crime.

But the way he's approached it has been called basically state-sponsored murder by human rights groups. What do we know about the death toll? The death toll is very controversial. The Philippine Drug Enforcement Authority said late last year that the death toll was close to 8,000 people killed as part of the anti-drug campaign. But human rights groups say the toll could be three times, maybe four times more. I myself did an investigation based on three different places in Manila and actually went street to street asking people how many had been killed in relation to drug war. I talked to local officials. I talked to the police. And then we did a statistical analysis and we found that the death toll in those places was

actually three times more. And what kind of behavior has the government sanctioned here? Like they're engaging, they see themselves as engaging in this big drug war. What kind of behaviors have been sanctioned as part of that? Duterte has actually told the police, you know, do what you have to do. Shoot them if you had to. I will protect you. That's what Duterte campaigned on, urging police and even ordinary civilians to go after drug dealers and other criminals. Go out and hunt them, he said. If they resist, kill them all. It will be bloody. So the police mostly has excused the killings as self-defense, that they were doing sting

operations on small-time drug dealers, and these drug dealers fought back, and so they killed them. That actually accounts for a minority of the killings. The vast majority of the killings were by motorcycle-riding assassins armed with.38 or.45 caliber pistols who shoot suspected drug dealers in their homes, in video gaming parlors, in places where they believe to be selling. So those account for the bulk of the killings. Police say these are mainly the work of drug gangs, but there have been some cases where it was found that they were actually off-duty policemen

or hired assassins on the payroll of the police. Needless to say, the idea of extrajudicial killings on site of suspected drug criminals does not cohere with most notions of democracy. Has Duterte actually curbed the illegal drug trade in the Philippines? It's very difficult to say. There have been a number of big time drug dealers who've been killed. But the reality is that on the ground, at least in the communities I've been following, they say the drug trade is still there, but it's much more clandestine. You know, in the past, but it's much more clandestine. You know, in the past, you could buy them off the streets.

Now it's much more secret, but drug dealing hasn't really stopped. It's interesting because this drug war doesn't seem to be killing the drug lords, but low-level users, the poor who live in these densely populated neighborhoods. Now, this is a drug war that you yourself have, you've covered extensively. Let's hear some stories about the human impact of that war. Is there a story that particularly sticks out for you? There's a story I've written about. It's the story of Jefferson Soriano, who was believed by the police to be a drug seller in his slum community in Quezon City,

which is in the northeastern part of Manila. And he was actually arrested twice and beaten up by the police. At least that's his story. And in fact, the story is, I've looked at the records in the local neighborhood where he lives, and they do attest to the fact that he was arrested. And then one night, he was out with a friend smoking at a corner store. It was late at night.

There was a power failure, so it was very dark. And then there were two assassins who shot at him and his friend. His friend died. He was shot, I think, in the neck and the shoulder. And he pretended to be dead. And the assassins went away. There were people around who were afraid to get him, but they finally did. His family was finally called and he was brought to the local neighborhood

ambulance and the ambulance refused to drive, he said. And he felt that they were just waiting for him to die. And finally they got so angry, he finally got to the hospital and he was gagging on his own blood. Oh, wow. And barely, barely survived. He said the emergency room in the hospital was so full of people that he had to put his finger in his throat so that he would not choke on his own blood.

And he was in fear for his life. He was in hiding when I saw him. But the kind of astonishing ending to this story was that he was one of a few people who went to the Supreme Court. He was in touch with lawyers, got in touch with him eventually, human rights lawyers. And they filed a case on behalf of him and a few others questioning the constitutionality of the drug war. This is the problem with all this vigilante killing, so-called vigilante killings, is because you can't sue anybody because they're masked gunmen. And so he was there and he was in crutches when he attended the Supreme Court hearing.

He could barely speak at that time because he had a wound in his throat. But it's an amazing story of the pushback, which is the other story that's not been quite told here, is there's pushback from some of the communities, certainly from some sections of the Catholic Church, from the human rights community, and from a lot of other parts of civil society in the Philippines. There is pushback against the drug war. It's not like the entire country is complicit and has been cowed or believes in deterrent. There's been real pushback on all of these killings. That is, first of all, that's a harrowing story. That's a really difficult story to hear. Let's talk a little bit about that pushback, about the ways that these institutions have

tried to push back against the drug war and its constitutionality. Have they had any success in doing that? Have they had any success in doing that? Well, very limited success. The only case in which the police have been convicted was the case of a 17-year-old who was killed by the police. And the reason that conviction even happened was because there was CCTV footage to show the policeman killing the 17-year-old. And also because there was anger. There were demonstrations on the streets. That's the only conviction in nearly five years of the drug war. But there have been a number of cases that have been filed in court. They're not moving

because the justice system is, as Duterte himself acknowledges, is corrupt, beholden to power, compromised in so many ways. But there's also the cases with the International Criminal Court, which were possible only because people had been willing to testify. And some of these, the survivors, you know, the families of the drug war victims have actually filed cases with the ICC. And there is now an ongoing, the court is now getting testimonies from the families and from witnesses, and those testimonies are being gathered with the help of human rights groups.

And from my going around communities, there are actually cases in the community, when somebody dies, the communities have spontaneously held, they brought the coffins in front of the police station and, you know, shouted slogans at the police. So there's real pushback. But they're small and people are afraid. But it's even more amazing that these things are happening considering, like, the UN Human Rights Commissioner says

there have been, like, 250 killings of human rights defenders in the Philippines since 2016. We are talking about a lot of things in the past here. Should we be discounting Duterte as a political force in the future? Because he's already hinted at maybe looking at the vice presidency next year. Duterte does not want to be a lame duck. And so he wants to show that he's still very much in play. So he's saying he will run for the vice presidency, which he might. There's precedent for that. When he was, he had faced term limits when he was mayor of Davao. He ran as vice mayor to his daughter.

His daughter is now a top contender for the presidency. Duterte wants to ensure that he's not held to account for anything that happened during his presidency. And this is why he's saying he's going to run or that one, either his daughter or some close political ally is going to contest the presidency. So yes, I think he will continue to be a political force even after his term is over, even if he's not in public office. What could that mean for the country? Well, it is really, to me, this election is an inflection point on the strength of strongman rule, whether Duterte is an exception or whether we're in for another 20 or 30 years of authoritarianism in the Philippines.

We've been through this cycle before. So we'll have to see. I mean, definitely the strength of civil society has been much weaker. Duterte is a strong president. The use of the information space, you know, the change information landscape, particularly online, social media, to bolster his power has been unprecedented. The liberal opposition and human rights groups and civil society don't quite know how to respond to that yet. But we'll have to see. I think this is why I think this is a very important election. A lot of the money is going to some sort of continuation of having a local boss in power, somebody more in the strong man, strong woman mode. But Philippine elections have always had uncertain outcomes. Filipinos have tended in the past 30 years to vote for somewhat the opposite of the previous

president. So we'll have to see. The landscape hasn't settled down yet. And we may be in for a surprise. But I think if you talk to a lot of the pundits, they're saying this is an election for Duterte or one of the Duterte allies or some sort of Duterte-like figure to lose. Sheila, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. A very different story is dominating media coverage in the Philippines this week. She has the clean.

Now she needs the jerk. Can she recover? There it is! Your Olympic champion in the women's... Weightlifter Haideline Diaz won the country's first Olympic gold in Tokyo. Diaz, who's 30 years old, lifted a combined weight of 224 kilograms, an Olympic record.

She got quite the homecoming and will get at least $40 million in cash rewards. She's also been given not one, not two, but three homes so far and a long list of lifetime freebies like flights and fast food. That's all for this week. FrontBurner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Elaine Chao, Imogen Burchard, Katie Toth, Simi Bassi, and Sundas Noor. It's Sundas' last week with us.

Thank you so much for all your help. Our sound design was by Derek Vanderwyk and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chavison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of FrontBurner is Nick McCabe-Locos. I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud. Thank you for listening, and I'll be back in the host chair in a couple of weeks. Talk to you then.