「日刊まにら新聞」ウェブ

“But if the problem of killings go on, I would not bet on public opinion maintaining its positive tone. I think the dynamics there would go wrong for the administration.”

DMS: One controversy is the scope of killings (in the war against illegal drugs.) They are saying this is something that hasn’t happened during Martial Law. How do you look at this?

CASIPLE: It’s unjust to compare today with the Martial Law period, the big difference is you have a dictatorship there and then you can actually blame everything on him because Marcos virtually was the government,

The problem of course now with the anti-drug campaign and the statistics I know, there is no qualitative difference between the killings now and before the anti-drug campaign, for example. the riding in tandem killings.

The vigilante types of killings has been with us for the past actually 30 years and if you compare the statistics before the Duterte government there really was a surge but not really big but there is continuous killings. The problem is that when he launched the campaign the media paid attention by collecting all this news and putting it together, but you can check with the PNP (Philippine National Police). There was a rise, of course, but the significance was not great.

But and this is the big but, the difference is that you have a president who launched a campaign and included that as a particular part of the protocol, when he called upon the police to not hesitate in killing but he made sure he has his premises right, meaning due process, human rights, rule of law.

Critics would argue that would make for a very loose protocol and I agree, the problem actually with this particular campaign is they have quotas and you know what happens when there is a quota.

Those who did not perform from that point of view were transferred or reshuffled a lot of them and those who had this fulfilled was promoted.

So there is great pressure on the police to deliver and that makes for many mistakes but the statistics that Chief PNP Dela Rosa submitted to the Senate which was not really taken up by the media only two percent of the killings they accept as extrajudicial killings.

Meaning that if you apply the technical term that an EJK (extra-judicial killing) is done by an agent of the state whether police, soldier or civilian and that person was killed was already in control of the state and was killed maybe during at the time of arrest, imprisonment or detention, thats the two percent.

The problem of course is the president and his speeches created the atmosphere or the climate. I think one can say that's his share or responsibility and that of course is disturbing and the human rights community both international and local has responded. But he states that is already interfering or sabotaging his campaign but there is also a history behind that when he was still the mayor of Davao, he responded quite angrily and now the complication there is that he suspects that there is a political move against him.

DMS: Do you see the outrage mounting as more bodies, more casualties are reported by the day?

CASIPLE: In time, but not on an immediate time frame, because the reports we got on the community level is that more people are supporting it. In fact they are delighting in it. For the first time they can go out in the streets at night, no more drinking sprees on the sidewalk, no more karaoke. I mean its very standard just like in Davao. There is a palpable sense of discipline, Its not fear, its more of a sigh of relief.

But if the problem of killings go on, I would not bet on that public opinion maintaining its positive tone. I think the dynamics there would go wrong for the administration.

DMS: In his comprehensive tax reforms submitted to the House, it has higher taxes written all over it, would people accept the stiff impact of these high prices on inflation and on their everyday lives?

CASIPLE: Well that is a tricky question in the sense that if there is a palpable progress in their economic circumstances, like higher wages, higher taxes wouldn’t mean much. But if the income remains the same it would make a real impact.

Then there is a suspicion I think it's not really a well thought out tax reform measure. Many of the elements there were actually from the previous administration one with quite a different set of priorities.

I think the budget as submitted today is more than a contingency budget more than anything else meaning they are giving themselves a big leeway in case something happens they did not foresee.

DMS: But if it's found that the resources that he needs to implement these changes or the promises he made during the campaign is lacking and people will have to make sacrifices, will people accept that?

CASIPLE: In the short time I think yes, I mean given that he is still new and there is a lot of popular support for him, they can accept that. Just as they accepted the Aquino administration for the first three years. But then the disappointment will come in, if the sacrifices doesn’t produce the fulfilment of promises and so on.

(To be continued)