The War on Drugs Exposed a Deeper Problem We Can’t Ignore

By Michael Henry Yusingco, LL.M

For the families of those killed in the War on Drugs, seeing former President Rodrigo Duterte face trial at The Hague feels like long-overdue justice. After years of frustration, after being ignored by their own government, they finally have a shot at accountability. And no one, absolutely no one, should ever fault them for wanting that.

But let’s be real — it is a national embarrassment that they had to go to an international court in the first place. Even our own Justice Secretary, Boying Remulla, admitted that the Philippine justice system failed them. Ponder on that for a moment. Our system failed our own people so badly that they had to turn to foreigners to get justice against a Filipino leader for crimes committed on Filipino soil.

But the War on Drugs did not just expose the brokenness of our justice system. It laid bare a deeper, more dangerous problem: the militarization of our police.

Recall the time former President Duterte gave informal instructions to the police and the military to “shoot them dead”, referring to violators of the Covid lockdown order. But using the Philippine National Police (PNP) as the instrument of terror in his drug war is the most apt illustration of this problem.  The fact that police personnel were the triggermen is indeed the underpinning pathology of extrajudicial killings.

The PNP is harshly criticized as “a military organization masquerading as a civilian organization”. This criticism is not unwarranted considering the PNP as an institution traces its roots to the old Philippine Constabulary. The latter was both the national police and a major command in the armed forces. Hence, it was only natural for the PNP to inherit military customs and conventions. Significantly, the current PNP chief, Police General Rommel Marbil, wants to get rid of its “militaristic” structure.

The PNP chief’s reform ambition aligns perfectly with Article XVI, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution, to wit:

“The State shall establish and maintain one police force, which shall be national in scope and civilian in character, to be administered and controlled by a national police commission. The authority of local executives over the police units in their jurisdiction shall be provided by law.”

The most fundamental and vital guiding principle in this provision pertains to the civilian character of the PNP. As previously mentioned, before the 1987 Constitution the police force was part of the broader military contingent. The 1986 Constitutional Commission purposely aimed to change this by enshrining in the constitution the requirement that the police must be civilian in character. Hence, cleansing the PNP of its military spirit fulfils a constitutional directive.

Notably, the civilian character of the PNP is further emphasized in Section 2 of RA 6975:

“The police force shall be organized, trained and equipped primarily for the performance of police functions. Its national scope and civilian character shall be paramount. No element of the police force shall be military nor shall any position thereof be occupied by active members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”

Section 2 of RA 8551 likewise highlights the civilian character of the PNP but further provides: “The Philippine National Police (PNP) shall be a community and service oriented agency responsible for the maintenance of peace and order and public safety.”

It is very clear that the 1987 Constitution and the basic laws governing the PNP mandate its civilian character. And when former President Duterte weaponized the police in his drug war, he did not just trample on human rights — he shredded the very idea of civilian policing that the constitution enshrines.

The PNP should never be a mere clone of the armed forces in both structure and ethos. To utilize the PNP in a government program like the War on Drugs is profoundly antithetical to the 1987 Constitution. All presidents should resist the temptation to use the PNP as a personal armed militia.

PNP personnel should protect and preserve the civilian character of the PNP, even if this means spurning the President himself. Easier said than done, of course. But civil society must constantly assert that the constitution and the rule of law should always be the primordial considerations, especially when peace and order are at stake.

We must all ensure that the PNP is never again used as a lethal weapon against the citizenry.