Facebook Fired Up After Philippines' Duterte Releases 'Narco' List
Erin Hale ,
CONTRIBUTOR
FORBES.COM
The Philippines’ Facebook community appears to support the controversial publication of 159 names of police, judges and politicians allegedly linked to the country’s massive drug trade.
Over the weekend, President Rodrigo Duterte read the list aloud at a press conference and gave those named 24 hours to turn themselves in to local authorities. The list has since been published on national and regional news outlets, receiving 40,800 shares alone on news outlet Inquirer.net.
People who turned themselves in take an oath before local authorities during a mass surrender of some 1,000 alleged drug users and pushers in the town of Tanauan. (TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images)
The Philippines has one of the most active Facebook communities in Asia with 47 million users, or over half the population of 98 million. While news outlets quickly found problems with the list, such as the fact that one judge named has been dead for 8 years or that in some cases only partial names were given, many Facebook users seem ready to see justice handed out to institutional backers of the drug trade.
Reynaldo P Casayas, for example, received 44 likes on a Philippine StarFacebook news post for saying the prosecutions were justified despite some mistakes:
People are crying of the 2 mistakes in the list but is it not alarming that Judges, Lawmakers, Police Officers, Mayors etc are in the list? The drug problem is beyond control and if Duterte will not push for it, then nobody will. I don’t condone on the 2 personalities mistakenly included and I am so sorry for them. But it is certain that illegal drugs is beyond control and all of us are asked to rally behind Duterte to protect the future generation.
His comments were echoed by many others on news websites, Facebook posts, and in pro-Duterte groups like “Duterte Warriors.” Other users mentioned the vast network of corruption in the Philippines, the “coddling of drug dealers,” and a desire to see their country cleaned up.
Recommended by Forbes
Upbeat Philippine Economic Forecast After Duterte Election
Philippine President-Elect Expected To Control His Anger After Taking Offi...
CargillVoice: These Fortified Food Staples Prevent Birth Defects
Dictator In The Making? Philippine President-Elect Already Asking For Emergency...
5 Things We Know About The Viral Philippines' Prison Photos
MOST POPULAR
Photos: The Most Expensive Home Listing in Every State 2016
+42,619 VIEWS
Now The Obama Administration Is After Gunsmiths?
MOST POPULAR
Photos: The Richest Person In Every State
MOST POPULAR
Exclusive: Bret Hart Lets Loose On Seth Rollins, Goldberg, WWE Creative, Cody...
Not all users supported the decision, like Facebook user Gloria B Wilhelm who wrote on the same Philippine Star post:
The public who takes his [Duterte's] words as God’s, already condemned and hanged them, without due process of law. It is hasty like his mouth, cruel and thoughtless… It is a very disturbing development.
The release of the “narco” list is the latest development in the Philippines violent war on drugs, which began when the country’s new president Duterte was sworn in on June 30. He began his tenure calling for vigilante justice for drug dealers.
Since June 30, hundreds of alleged drug dealers have been killed in extra-judicial murders (see the latest “Kill List”), but the president’s hard line on drugs has been embraced by many Filipinos as the drug trade directly impacts even those who are not sellers or users, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2016 International Narcotics Strategy Report on the Philippines:
International organized crime groups have established operational elements throughout the urban areas of the Philippines. In 2015, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the lead counternarcotics enforcement agency in the country, reported that 8,629 villages or barangays (approximately 20 percent of the country’s villages) reported drug-related crimes.
Many Filipinos also seem exacerbated by the inaction of local leaders, and a slow and ineffective legal system. When Cebu City ex-mayor Michael Rama, who was named on Duterte’s list, protested his innocence on Facebook, he was met with a mixed response. One user thought Rama’s prosecution was justified because he let his city’s drug problem continue without trying to stop it, writing:
I asked for help from you a lot of times during your term for Lahug’s drug problem… and you didn’t do anything about it!
Other users made similar comments, frustrated as much by local leaders who didn’t take on the drug trade as much as those who participated in it.
The Philippines’ Facebook community appears to support the controversial publication of 159 names of police, judges and politicians allegedly linked to the country’s massive drug trade.
Over the weekend, President Rodrigo Duterte read the list aloud at a press conference and gave those named 24 hours to turn themselves in to local authorities. The list has since been published on national and regional news outlets, receiving 40,800 shares alone on news outlet Inquirer.net.
People who turned themselves in take an oath before local authorities during a mass surrender of some 1,000 alleged drug users and pushers in the town of Tanauan. (TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images)
The Philippines has one of the most active Facebook communities in Asia with 47 million users, or over half the population of 98 million. While news outlets quickly found problems with the list, such as the fact that one judge named has been dead for 8 years or that in some cases only partial names were given, many Facebook users seem ready to see justice handed out to institutional backers of the drug trade.
Reynaldo P Casayas, for example, received 44 likes on a Philippine StarFacebook news post for saying the prosecutions were justified despite some mistakes:
People are crying of the 2 mistakes in the list but is it not alarming that Judges, Lawmakers, Police Officers, Mayors etc are in the list? The drug problem is beyond control and if Duterte will not push for it, then nobody will. I don’t condone on the 2 personalities mistakenly included and I am so sorry for them. But it is certain that illegal drugs is beyond control and all of us are asked to rally behind Duterte to protect the future generation.
His comments were echoed by many others on news websites, Facebook posts, and in pro-Duterte groups like “Duterte Warriors.” Other users mentioned the vast network of corruption in the Philippines, the “coddling of drug dealers,” and a desire to see their country cleaned up.
Recommended by Forbes
Upbeat Philippine Economic Forecast After Duterte Election
Philippine President-Elect Expected To Control His Anger After Taking Offi...
CargillVoice: These Fortified Food Staples Prevent Birth Defects
Dictator In The Making? Philippine President-Elect Already Asking For Emergency...
5 Things We Know About The Viral Philippines' Prison Photos
MOST POPULAR
Photos: The Most Expensive Home Listing in Every State 2016
+42,619 VIEWS
Now The Obama Administration Is After Gunsmiths?
MOST POPULAR
Photos: The Richest Person In Every State
MOST POPULAR
Exclusive: Bret Hart Lets Loose On Seth Rollins, Goldberg, WWE Creative, Cody...
Not all users supported the decision, like Facebook user Gloria B Wilhelm who wrote on the same Philippine Star post:
The public who takes his [Duterte's] words as God’s, already condemned and hanged them, without due process of law. It is hasty like his mouth, cruel and thoughtless… It is a very disturbing development.
The release of the “narco” list is the latest development in the Philippines violent war on drugs, which began when the country’s new president Duterte was sworn in on June 30. He began his tenure calling for vigilante justice for drug dealers.
Since June 30, hundreds of alleged drug dealers have been killed in extra-judicial murders (see the latest “Kill List”), but the president’s hard line on drugs has been embraced by many Filipinos as the drug trade directly impacts even those who are not sellers or users, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2016 International Narcotics Strategy Report on the Philippines:
International organized crime groups have established operational elements throughout the urban areas of the Philippines. In 2015, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the lead counternarcotics enforcement agency in the country, reported that 8,629 villages or barangays (approximately 20 percent of the country’s villages) reported drug-related crimes.
Many Filipinos also seem exacerbated by the inaction of local leaders, and a slow and ineffective legal system. When Cebu City ex-mayor Michael Rama, who was named on Duterte’s list, protested his innocence on Facebook, he was met with a mixed response. One user thought Rama’s prosecution was justified because he let his city’s drug problem continue without trying to stop it, writing:
I asked for help from you a lot of times during your term for Lahug’s drug problem… and you didn’t do anything about it!
Other users made similar comments, frustrated as much by local leaders who didn’t take on the drug trade as much as those who participated in it.
FORBES.COM
.jpg)
