MANILA, Philippines - Since Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines just over a month ago, promising to get tough on crime by having the police and the military kill drug suspects, 420 people have been killed in the campaign, according to tallies of police reports by the local news media.

Most were killed in confrontations with the police, while 154 were killed by unidentified vigilantes. This has prompted 114,833 people to turn themselves in, as either drug addicts or dealers, since Duterte took office, according to national police logs.

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NO ONE claims to support the killing of the innocent, but it seems that many are willing to leave the judgment of innocence to the police and the vigilantes. Even worse, many are seeing death itself as proof of one's guilt.

"He must have been a drug pusher," said some netizens of Emmanuel Jose Pavia, the Ateneo High School teacher who was shot and killed in Marikina.

"They were killed because they deserved it. Kill pa more!" exclaimed one commenter on one of the many reports-now commonplace-on the corpses of suspected drug pushers found in the streets.

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Case of 'Cardboard Justice' Assailed

That is the message of Jennilyn Olayres to President Duterte, whose war on illegal drugs had taken the life of her husband, Michael Siaron.

Olayres (not Olaires as earlier reported) will bury her husband on Wednesday, 11 days after motorcycle-riding men shot him dead at Pasay Rotunda on Edsa and Taft Avenue.

She conceded Siaron, 29, was a drug user, but she said it was impossible that he was a dealer because they were too poor and could barely pay for their next meal.

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Next week in Washington, a Filipino quality will be highlighted in an assembly of young leaders from around the world. It's "calidad humana" a term coined by Chile's former ambassador to Manila, Roberto Mayorga, to describe the ordinary Filipino's compassion and humaneness that he has found so remarkable because, he says, it is rapidly disappearing in many societies including his own.

The term, as Mayorga acknowledges, defies exact translation; the closest he can think of in Filipino is

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A religious group regularly visits the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) to preach love and hope to inmates and offer women and illegal drugs on the side, according to reports reaching Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

"We have found out some of the possibly religious personnel who were conducting preaching inside the penitentiary have been used to bring drugs as well as prostitutes inside the penitentiary," Aguirre said, citing information he received from a member of a non-government organization and three NBP guards who visited him recently.

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Ciliclap, Indonesia - INDONESIA executed four drug convicts yesterday but 10 others due to face the firing squad were given an apparent reprieve in a confused process one lawyer condemned as a "complete mess".

The executions on a remote prison island went ahead despite strong protests from international rights groups, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union who had urged Indonesia not to proceed.

Four inmates - three Nigerians and one Indonesian - were put to death just after midnight. One of the Nigerian prisoners was cremated hours later, while the bodies of the three others were being prepared for burial.

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A FRIEND from my college years now based in Cagayan de Oro messaged me for help. His activist friend working in an LGU was surprised to find his name included in a list of suspected drug lords.

He vouches that his friend is clean and is a victim of false information made by the mayor's political rivals.

This message comes at a time when we are seeing distressing news on President Duterte's war on drugs and crime. At first, news of drug users and peddlers surrendering en masse, the relief of top ranking police chiefs for alleged protecting of drug lords and the cleanup of Bilibid were reasons to cheer.

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IN his first State of the Nation Address (Sona) among the memorable lines that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said were: "human rights must work to uplift human dignity. But human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country your country and my country" these, and the many statements that referred to illegal drugs.

Michael Moore, the American documentary filmmaker and author known for his critique of the current state of American politics, economics and culture, featured dealing with drug addiction in his production "Where to Invade Next", a documentary premised on the idea of identifying and "stealing great ideas" of other countries that could be brought back to the United States--hence the notion of invasion, but minus the violence that it usually entails.

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Corazon Aquino unleashed the freedom fighter in the Pinoy. Fidel Ramos unleashed the team spirit.

Rodrigo Duterte is unleashing... our inner homicidal maniac?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I can't help wondering if this "killing time" under Dirty Rody emboldened Army reservist Von Tanto to shoot that biker with whom he had a vehicular altercation Monday night.

CCTV footage showed Tanto not just shooting to kill rather than wound, but finishing off Mark Vincent Geralde as the biker lay dying on the pavement. A stray bullet apparently hit and critically wounded a teenage girl standing in front of her house nearby.

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All told, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte's first State of the Nation Address (SONA) really inspires hope for a better Philippines in the future. The "show" at the Batasan looks so authentic and natural indeed, devoid of any semblance of artificiality. What we saw is what we got especially the persona of Duterte as a man of the masses to whom most Filipinos can relate.

He really looks so sincere and raring to tackle his job as he entered the halls of Congress in Barong Tagalog with rolled up sleeves.

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PRESIDENT Duterte's State of the Nation Address (Sona) was laced with confusing and sometimes contradictory messages. At one point he stated rightly that the "rule of law must at all times prevail" and that government is obliged to "fulfill the human rights of our citizens."

However, President Duterte's unwillingness to use his Sona to direct a thorough investigation into the alarming surge in the killings of suspected drug dealers and users in recent weeks, allegedly by the police, symbolizes a critical failure on his part to fulfill his obligation to defend the rule of law and to uphold and protect the rights and freedoms of all Filipinos.

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MOMENTS after presiding over his first National Security Council meeting on Wednesday, President Duterte called on local government officials to support his war against illegal drugs, warning that unless the scourge is eliminated, it will haunt the three succeeding administrations.

No details of the five-hour long council meeting-attended by former Presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III, Vice President Leni Robredo, Cabinet secretaries and leaders of Congress-were revealed.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, briefing reporters yesterday, confirmed that the drug problem was among three major issues tackled, but that Mr. Duterte had requested participants to keep sensitive issues to themselves.

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The Indonesian government said it had executed four drug traffickers, giving a reprieve of uncertain duration to 10 others who it had said would also be put to death. Deputy Attorney General Noor Rachmad said one Indonesian and three Nigerians were executed by firing squad. He said the government has not decided when the other executions will take place. It is the third set of executions under President Joko Widodo, who was elected in 2014.

- - From news services

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JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia on Friday executed three foreigners and an Indonesian convicted of drug crimes, an official said, as the country resumed a "war on drugs" that drew international condemnation last year after two mass executions of foreign drug convicts.

The official, Deputy Attorney General Noor Rachmad, said that the Indonesian convict, two Nigerians and a Senegalese were executed by firing squad shortly after midnight.

Mr. Rachmad said a decision had not yet been made about when 10 others convicted of drug crimes and sentenced to death, mostly foreigners, would be executed.

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RIGHT TO LIFE being inherent in the human person, the many believers in the sanctity of life are not likely to withdraw their call that suspected users of illegal drugs be given a chance to be heard before being silenced on the spot by a bullet.

There are many circumstances that an arresting police officer must sort out in his mind a split-second before pulling the trigger on a suspected drug-user/pusher who is still presumed innocent under the law.

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President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise to eradicate the menace of illegal drugs in the country from three to six months may soon be realized at the rate the police are cracking the whip on drug lords and pushers.

As of the latest count, there are already 312 dead, 3,228 arrested, 120,209 who surrendered and 63,972 houses raided. The government is turning the tide on its bloody war against drugs.

"This will be a fight to the death," said PNP chief Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, who declared total war on drugs. He also warned police officers who are involved in drugs not to push their luck too much or else suffer the same fate as the drug lords.

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EVER since the President won on a platform of ridding this country of drugs and crime, we have heard it said: this is not a war on drugs; it is a war on the poor. This is a violation of human rights, a violation of the rights of the poor to due process, their right to life, their right to live.

Human rights are the soul of the country, said the Vice President. This President has no sense of what human rights are about, say critics. Media spins these deaths: they are all poor! The chairmen of Barangays Bel-Air, Dasmarinas, Forbes Park, San Lorenzo, and Urdaneta sign are no drug users and pushers in posh villages.

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OUR new president, Rodrigo Duterte, asked us that he be given three to six months to eradicate the problem of drug trafficking and abuse that's plaguing our country. The number of casualties in the ongoing war against drugs, which is hardly a month-old, has alarmed the Commission on Human Rights and some citizens.

Can we really win a war against drugs? We've been fighting this war for years, but illegal drugs remain within reach of anybody who wants to use them. What if the proliferation of drugs is not the real problem but just a "symptom"?

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UNITED States Secretary of State John Kerry mentioned the need to protect civil and human rights during talks on a wide range of issues yesterday with President Duterte and Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay.

In a press briefing, Palace spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Kerry brought up the matter then listened "very intently" to the President's explanation of his drive against criminality.

Before meeting with the President, Kerry held a joint press conference with Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay and spoke of the need to protect people's rights even as authorities seek to uphold peace and order.

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The Senate is set to investigate the rising incidence of extrajudicial killings of alleged drug pushers even as President Duterte has vowed there will be no letup in his anti-drug campaign.

The inquiry will be spearheaded by the Senate committee on justice and human rights, chaired by Sen. Leila de Lima, along with Sen. Panfilo Lacson as chairman of the committee on public order and dangerous drugs.

De Lima earlier filed Resolution No. 9 seeking an investigation into "recent rampant extrajudicial killings and summary executions of suspected criminals to strengthen the mechanisms of accountability of law enforcers and to institute corrective legislative measures to ensure full respect of basic human rights, especially the right to life."

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