The Philippine Drug War Our World

Broadcast earlier this year, viewers should be aware that

Jonathan Head's report contains some disturbing images.

The Philippines is being shaken by a one-man revolution.

Either you will kill me or I will kill you, idiots.

He's a tough-talking former mayor who has vowed to wipe

out drug dealers.

His war on drugs has unleashed assassins like Maria.

When I got near this person who owed a lot to my boss I went up close

and then shot him.

Every day the bodies of suspected dealers are discovered.

More than 3,000 have been killed in three months.

It's really tiring and scary hiding all the time.

You don't know if the person right in front of you will inform

on you or if he might be your killer.

The police are raiding prisons and being forced

to purge their own ranks.

The war on drugs is really bloody and messy.

And we all know that.

This war is being fought in some of the poorest communities

in the country.

Over the past two decades, the Philippines has been swamped

by the cheap and highly addictive drug crystal meth.

It's known here as shabu.

It destroys lives, breaks families and feeds

a powerful criminal underworld.

Filipinos are among the world's highest users of the drug.

Official statistics say 1.8 million people here are addicted.

But recently elected president who do believe the true figure

is more than double that.

He has promised to stop it

by unleashing a violent campaign against the dealers.

A late afternoon raid just outside Manila,

part of President Rodrigo Duterte's antidrug campaign.

In a country that's awash with guns as well as narcotics,

they've come well-prepared.

But what's striking is their target today.

It's a prison.

This is one of the largest prisons in Manila and we come

in with a pretty large team of police, SWAT teams

and by the look of them they were obviously expecting

the possibility of serious armed resistance.

Actually it's more like a drug search in a standard prison

with them checking where people keep their possessions,

they have one man under arrest here.

The drug problem is so serious here in the government's view

that they have to send in teams like this into a prison

that is technically controlled by the authorities.

The inmates are all made to lie face down and search for any sign

they may still be using or dealing drugs.

The stench in these hot, overcrowded dormitories is overpowering.

They think this man is an important dealer.

But where is the other evidence they expected to find?

Undercover officers have bought drugs here several times

in recent weeks.

But it seems this time the prisoners have been tipped off.

In vain they press a Chinese prisoner for more information.

Many of the drug syndicates operating in the Philippines are

Chinese-run.

But all they can find is an assortment of rusty improvised

weapons.

These police officers, more than 200 of them,

have been brought here from the other side of Manila.

The local forces couldn't be trusted.

That's how deeply the narcotics business has infiltrated this

country.

Do you think the campaign that is going on now will succeed,

that it will wipe out drugs?

Again that is the challenge and we will do our best to comply

with the orders of the president to get rid of drugs in three

to six months.

You do have problems inside the police, there are some

police officers involved in the trade?

There are, that's part of the cleansing process,

internal cleansing,

we don't care if they are policemen, we have to get them,

put them in jail and if they fight then we have to defend ourselves.

It doesn't matter, if there are policemen involved,

we have to get them.

In many ways what's happening today in the Philippines actually starts

here at the monument to the first ever people power revolution 30

years ago when a popular uprising overthrew the dictator

Ferdinand Marcos and ushered

in a boisterous and freewheeling democracy.

Filipinos have kept faith with that democracy,

voting in huge numbers every six years for a new president,

yet everyone of those governments has bailed to come even close

to meeting the hopes that were raised here,

the old habits of corruption and abuses of power,

lawlessness and grinding poverty would be curbed.

And so the voters have now gone for something drastically different.

They are elected outspoken mayor Rodrigo Duterte by a landslide.

He has presented himself as an antiestablishment figure

who can fix problems.

He cares little for the polite conventions of politics,

giving unscripted speech is often laced with obscenities.

And what he calls the pandemic of methamphetamine addiction

is at the very top of his list of things to do.

We have seen a lot of ranting about human rights in my

campaign against drugs.

Let me be frank with you this afternoon, the fight against drugs

will continue and will be unrelenting.

If the resistance is violent thereby placing your life in jeopardy

you shoot and shoot them dead.

Can I be more clearer than that?

The bodies of those suspected of involvement in drugs started

turning up right after he took office.

The police admit killing hundreds, all resisting arrest, they say.

But many more have died at the hands of mysterious hit squads,

the reasons for each death often unclear.

This is a security camera video from a neighbourhood in Tondo,

Manila, on the evening of the third of August.

You can see local resident Danilo Mendoza buying something

from a food stall.

His young children playing around him.

A motorbike then pulls up.

The passenger then fires a single shot into his neck

and he drives off.

His wife is nearby and she rushes to help him, getting passers-by

to lift him into a motor tricycle.

But he died before they could get him to hospital.

I went to talk to his wife, Christie, who runs her own small

shop, and to his neighbours.

Was he killed because of drugs?

She told me he had been a user, but he had stopped right

after Duterte was elected.

He was not a dealer, she said.

When we got talking to other family members, they said Danilo had been

involved in illegal gambling together with some

corrupt police officers.

they said he had had a loud disagreement with one policeman

in the street where he was killed.

That they believe is why he died.

Danilo's assassin will probably never be identified.

The hit squads blamed for more than half the killings remain

in the shadows.

But we did manage to meet one of them, a young mother we called

Maria.

For obvious reasons her identity's been concealed.

Maria was brought into the contract killing business and she says

by her husband, but she'd only shot one man before

President Duterte's election victory.

Since then she's killed another five.

She has no idea why they were targeted,

but she says her boss is a police officer who is involved in drugs.

My husband was offered a job by a big-time policeman

while he was in jail.

He immediately said yes.

A lot of people owe this man money.

He is also a big-time drug dealer.

One time, when they needed a woman for someone a man could not get

close to, my husband got me the job.

I felt really scared and nervous, because it was my first time.

I just kept thinking "I'm doing this for my son".

When I got near this person, who owed a lot to my boss,

I went up close and then shot him.

Next time I killed was after President Duterte got elected.

Since August I've killed five people.

That's six in all.

What do you feel about the people that you kill,

because they have families too?

Do you feel guilty?

I do, because I have kids too.

I do it because we don't have money, I do it for my children.

I tell my husband that we can't keep doing this forever.

I would not want my children to open their eyes to what we do.

I don't want them to come back to us and say that they got to live

because we killed for money.

Maria's statements suggest a lot of the killing is done by people

inside the drug trade, perhaps eliminating rivals or those

who might incriminate more powerful figures.

But the impact of the drug war is being felt largely in poor

communities, like this one near central Manila.

This police officer showed me around his district.

He is the chairman and it's his job to keep an eye out for trouble.

This is a senior citizen, a resident.

Very nice to meet you.

I'm Jonathan.

Ver nice to meet you, sir.

Crime is a big concern here and talking to the residents,

it's clear that President Duterte's way of dealing with it is popular.

They like the fact that he is humble and down-to-earth, they say.

But Edgar knows of 16 crystal meth addicts living in his area.

Most of them are pedicab drivers.

He has had the difficult job of getting them to register

with the police just to keep them alive.

They are afraid because of the president.

They are worried about their life, their family, mothers, brothers.

They are worried that, once they are caught,

they know what will happen.

They might be killed?

Yeah, so they are really afraid.

A few of the former addicts have joined the local

council as volunteers.

But there are no rehabilitation facilities here, or anywhere else

in Manila, for them.

Nor is there much sympathy from their neighbours who applaud

the President's hard stand.

This woman is a widow who teaches in the local primary school.

She told me that the parents of six children in her class are drug

addicts, and she says it's worse in other schools.

The bottomline is drugs and the poor people engage in drugs

because in drugs they can make money, because drugs now can be

bought in very...

Cheap?

Low price.

I believe in Duterte's vision of cleaning and curing

the land and society.

I believe in him.

So when I found out that he will run for president, I supported him.

But can his anti-drug campaign succeed?

More than 700,000 addicts have already registered with the police.

Here they are adding their names before joining a morning exercise

routine in front of one of Manila's main churches.

Trying to work the drug out of their system

with some fast footwork.

Led by Manila's finest.

The police hope this will help to keep former

addicts away from the drug, but in truth it exposes

the lack of any alternative treatment for them.

And you have to wonder how long a police force,

busy cleansing its own ranks, can keep up this energetic community

work.

Excuse me, sir.

The police are also expected to make house calls to check

on registered addicts.

This is one of the roughest of Manila's neighbourhoods.

And the police major is doing his rounds,

checking whether one-time drug users are slipping back

into their old habits.

This man is recognised as the husband of a known

crystal meth user.

"You'd better stay off it", the major warns him.

They've already nabbed one couple with a methamphetamine pipe.

They're made to march, handcuffed, with the police on a walk of shame

through the community.

This man was an addict for a year.

Now he must put up with having his home searched every week.

But at least this way he can be reasonably sure of staying alive.

How do you know if they're clean or not?

If they're still using or not?

If we can hear some reports...

You talk to the neighbours?

Yes.

Back at the police station, the handcuffed couple are booked.

Their two children look on tearfully.

This isn't the first time their parents have been caught,

as they may now have to move to one of the overcrowded jails.

They're just users, small-time players.

None of this really solves the country's drug problem.

Bigger dealers, like Roger, not his real name, have instead

chosen to go into hiding.

He says much of his business was with corrupt police

officers and he is convinced they would kill him

if they surrendered.

It is much better to run.

My colleagues who surrendered are now dead.

If I surrender, they kill me.

So why should I surrender?

Don't you ever feel guilty about the job you do?

You're selling drugs that are very destructive to people.

Methamphetamine is a very destructive drug.

I do believe I have committed sins, big-time.

I have wronged a lot of people.

Some people have become addicted to drugs and because I'm one

of the people who sells the drugs.

What I can say is it depends on the person.

I can't say that everyone who takes drugs commits crimes,

they steal or kill.

Me?

I am also an addict, I don't kill.

I am an addict, but I don't steal.

Roger plans to stay hidden for a few months and then get

back to business.

He doesn't believe President Duterte can keep his campaign

going for much longer.

Maria would like to get out of the killing business,

but she says she can't.

Do you ever wish that you hadn't started this?

That perhaps you hadn't started killing, or do you feel

you have no choice?

From now on I don't want to do it any more.

I'll leave it to my husband.

But my boss says that if one of us tries to leave,

we'll be killed.

Millions of Filipinos, though, still hold faith

in their new president.

That, unlike his predecessors, he can shake this country out

of its bad habits.

Many believe the Philippines needs another strong man.

But transforming this disorderly island nation of 100 million people

may yet prove too much, even for a man who is as ruthless

and determined as Rodrigo Duterte.

We've got a lot of fog out there, thick fog.

It's quite patchy, which makes it dangerous as well.