Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte declared open season on the country’s drug pushers and users last summer. Until this week, Duterte appeared immune to pressure to rein in the extrajudicial killings unleashed by his policies. But two things have forced “the Punisher” to change tack: growing criticism from the Roman Catholic Church, a political force to be reckoned with in the Philippines, and fallout from anti-drug officers’ recent killing of South Korean businessman Jee Ickjoo inside national police headquarters.
Earlier this week, Duterte disbanded the anti-drug units of the Philippine National Police and launched a campaign to rid the force of corruption. He also handed management of the drug war to the country’s main counternarcotics agency and pledged to give the military a bigger role in the fight. These moves will help Duterte regain a degree of control over the crackdown and shift the public’s focus to his more popular drive against corruption. But the underlying dynamics of the drug war will prolong both the wave of killings and the political risk it poses to Duterte’s presidency.
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