A welcome pivot toward a human rights-based drug policy

The editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last July 14, 2024, about the Philippine Drug Policy and Law Reform Summit (July 10-12, 2024) detailed a significant occasion for human rights defenders and drug reform advocacy groups nationwide. The event was jointly hosted by the Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime under the UN Joint Programme for Human Rights in the Philippines with the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law serving as academic partner. Many of the participants, especially those who faced demonization under the previous administration, claimed that they could not have imagined the event a few years ago.

Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) executive director Earl Saavedra and DOJ Undersec. Jesse Andres went through the UP Law Center Institute of Human Rights (UPIHR) prepared Rapporteur’s Outcome Report that included the lived experiences covered by national dialogues that showed the perspectives of over 434 who participated in various sectoral and regional dialogues across the country and 23 position papers and studies from chief security officers and drug policy experts. It was explicitly provided that former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has not yielded any notable success. Instead, it only resulted in grave human rights violations, limited access to drug treatment programs, and severe jail congestion.

The 2024 forum was in sharp contrast to the UPIHR and Free Legal Assistance Group’s Policy Forum called “Drug Issues, Different Perspectives” on May 5-6, 2017, where then President Duterte sacked DDB chair Benjamin Reyes after sharing government statistics that contradicted the president’s unsupported figures. Dr. Carl Hart, a neuroscientist who also spoke in the forum, was then insulted and cursed by Duterte. Meanwhile, the keynote speaker, UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, was banned from entering the Philippines.

The gathering allowed the participants to echo the Outcome Report, as they urged the government to put an end to the prohibitionist drug policy in favor of a rights-based approach that treats drug use as a health issue—starting by repealing “Oplan Tokhang,” abolishing the arrest-based and quota system used by the police, and ensuring accountability. Instead of focusing on street-level peddlers and nonviolent users, they called on the government to focus on the socioeconomic roots of the issue and divert funds to poverty alleviation. While remaining critical, the participants recognized that the forum is the crucial first step toward transforming the carceral and punitive drug policy.