scholarly journals Collusion or collision? The war on drugs in the Philippines

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Lara, Jr ◽  
Nikki Philline C. De la Rosa
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Shadow Economy ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Illegal Drug ◽  
Drug Trade ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
Violent Extremism

The spiral of State-led violence against the illegal drug trade in Southeast Asia did not end nor disrupt this shadow economy and its complex links to state and non-state actors as well as the newly emerging violent extremism. The evidence in fact shows that the violent response to the problem has only fuelled more economic, political, and security concerns. The case is the same in the Philippines where an indiscriminate and violent war on drugs has not lived up to its promises. Yet why is there continued public support for the anti-drug war despite its failures, and from among those that are often victimized by its violence? This paper takes an economic sociology approach to the problem of illegal drugs and turns the spotlight on the threats to embedded social networks posed by this deadly enterprise. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence and case studies of a province and city recognized as a hotbed in the government’s anti-drug war, the study will show how collusion and collision are alternate realities and means of adapting to an illicit enterprise that is bound to many social and economic arrangements, including those brought about by violent extremism.

scholarly journals Visions of Peace Amidst a Human Rights Crisis: War on Drugs in Colombia and the Philippines

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvador Santino F Regilme
Keyword(s):  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Illegal Drug ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Illegal Drugs ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
State Repression ◽  
The Core ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Local Discourses

Abstract Peace is one of most widely used yet highly contested concepts in contemporary politics. What constitutes peace? That broad analytic inquiry motivates this article, which focuses on the contentious discourses of peace within a society besieged by widespread trafficking and use of illegal drugs. Focusing on the illegal drug problem in Colombia and the Philippines, the central puzzle of this paper constitutes two fundamental questions: How do state leaders justify their respective “war on drugs”? How do they construct and discursively articulate ideals of peace in the context of the illegal drug problem? This paper compares the post-9/11 Colombian war on drugs (2002–2010) vis-à-vis the Philippine war on drugs under the Duterte administration (2016–2019), particularly in terms of how their presidential administrations articulate “peace” in the context of resolving the drug problem. The paper examines the varying discourses of peace, investigates how those local discourses relate to global discourses on peace and illegal drugs, and underscores how and under which conditions those peace discourses portray the material distributive conflicts in those societies. The core argument states that the Uribe and Duterte administrations primarily deployed the notion of peace as a justificatory discourse for increased state repression, intensified criminalization of the drug problem, and the reluctance of the state in embracing a public health approach to the proliferation of illegal drugs.

Ambiguous fear in the war on drugs: A reconfiguration of social and moral orders in the Philippines

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
Anna Bræmer Warburg ◽  
Steffen Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Social ◽  
Moral Discourses

This article explores the social and moral implications of Duterte's war on drugs in a poor, urban neighbourhood in Manila, the Philippines. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, surveys, and human rights interventions, the article sheds light on policing practices, social relations, and moral discourses by examining central perspectives of the state police implementing the drug war, of local policing actors engaging with informal policing structures, and of residents dealing with everyday insecurities. It argues that the drug war has produced a climate of ambiguous fear on the ground, which has reconfigured and destabilised social relations between residents and the state as well as among residents. Furthermore, this has led to a number of subordinate moral discourses — centred on social justice, family, and religion — with divergent perceptions on the drug war and the extent to which violence is deemed legitimate.

scholarly journals Rafael Lerma’s Photojournalistic Take on the Duterte Administration’s Drug War: A Counter-Barthesian Semiological Study

Plaridel ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-110
Author(s):  
Feorillo A. Demeterio III,
Keyword(s):  
Early Phase ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
Iconic Image ◽  
National Police

Rafael Lerma is an award-winning and outspoken Filipino photojournalist who works for the broadsheet The Philippine Daily Inquirer. When President Rodrigo Duterte took office on 01 July 2016 and started to implement his campaign promise to mount a thorough war on drugs, Lerma became one of the photojournalists who consistently documented the grisly track of the said war. His most iconic image—that of a dead pedicab driver being cradled by his grief-stricken widow—did not escape the rambling speech of the President himself during the latter’s first State of the Nation Address. This paper culls 25 of Lerma’s most famous images related to the Duterte administration’s drug war. From these 25 images, six recurrent sociocultural icons have been identified: 1) poverty; 2) the dehumanization/demonization of the casualties; 3) religion; 4) the weakness of governance in the Philippines; 5) Operation Plan Tokhang conducted by the Philippine National Police; and 6) the state and the nation. By subjecting these visual sociocultural icons to an inverted version of the semiology of the early phase of the French philosopher and cultural critic Roland Barthes, the researcher textually explores Lerma’s take on the said war. Furthermore, this paper theoretically tests the capacity of Barthes’ semiology to tackle not only ideological discourses that are tucked beneath some sociocultural icons but more so counter-ideological discourses that are launched by the less privileged sectors of society.

scholarly journals Attitude Fosters Support for Indonesia’s Drug War: A Quantitative Analysis of The University Students of Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 2271-2781
Author(s):  
Queenie Pearl Villalon Tomaro ◽  
Dyah Mutiarin ◽  
David N. Almarez
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Behavioral Control ◽  
Public Support ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Subjective Norm ◽  
Perceived Behavioral Control ◽  
Drug War ◽  
The Core

This quantitative study investigates the direct attributors to the formation of the intention of the Indonesian university students in supporting the War on Drugs of the Widodo administration. The core of this research rest upon the imperative role of public support to the furtherance of the enforcement of contentious policies such as the War on Drugs This study is theoretically anchored from the Theory of Planned Behavior of Icek Ajzen which links Attitude, Subjective norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control to intention - the intention to support the War on Drugs of Jokowi’s administration. In answer to the questions raised by the research, a self-reported questionnaire survey was conducted to 194 students enrolled in selected universities in Indonesia, namely, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Islamic Institute, and Universities Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Structural Equation Modelling and regression analysis was employed in evaluating and analyzing the results gathered from the survey. The analysis revealed that among Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceive Behavioral Control, only Attitude has emerged to have a positive impact over the intention of the students to support Indonesia’s Drug War Strategies. Hence, positive attitude towards the drug war is argued to drive intentions of support from the public. Consequently, in programs aimed at increasing public support for Drug War, attitude transformation strategies must be the core focus.

Remembering love: Memory work of orphaned children in the Philippine drug war

2020 ◽  
pp. 146801732097291
Author(s):  
Mira Alexis Ofreneo ◽  
Nico Canoy ◽  
Luz Maria Martinez ◽  
Pacita Fortin ◽  
Merlie Mendoza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Orphaned Children ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
Social Provisions

Summary The “war on drugs” in the Philippines has left a generation of Filipino orphaned children in deep grief and social disarray. Using feminist memory work as critical methodology and intervention design, this study examines accounts of 56 orphaned children and how they exercise agency embedded in the collective remembering of a traumatic past (i.e. rooted in painful memories of tokhang or community police operations) and to identify social structures that marginalize their present and future lifeworld. Findings Findings show three overarching themes namely: (1) reclaiming stripped agency in the loss and injustice of the past, (2) holding on to crippled agency in the sadness and insecurity of the present, and (3) carrying on with agency to hope for healing and justice in a reimagined future. Applications Insights and recommendations to critical praxis of social work in light of an ongoing drug war are further discussed which include strengthening civil societies and intersectoral collaborations, integrating specific social provisions for tokhang survivors in the creation of a national orphan policy, and using digital memorialization. Guided by enacting ethics and politics of caring for and with the marginalized, social workers working alongside expanded communities of care are called to remember love despite traumatic pains and to restore homes for orphaned children in the midst of state insecurity.

Conceptualizing International Labor Migration: A Structuration Perspective

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Goss ◽  
Bruce Lindquist
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
Theory Of Structuration ◽  
International Labor Migration

This article applies the theory of structuration to international labor migration using case study material from the Philippines. It first provides a brief review of the functional and structural approaches to understanding labor migration and the theoretical impasse that has been created between them. It then reviews several attempts to resolve this impasse, including systems and networks approaches; these solutions are rejected on theoretical and empirical grounds. We suggest that migrant institutions may be a more appropriate mid-level concept than households or social networks to articulate various levels of analysis. We develop this concept in the context of the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens and attempt to apply this to the Philippines, concluding that this framework is eminently suited for further research on international labor migration.

Overcoming and Penalizing Precarity: Narratives of Drug Personalities Arrested in the Philippine War on Drugs

2022 ◽  
pp. 089692052110702
Author(s):  
Filomin C. Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Drug Problem ◽  
Productive Work ◽  
Authoritarian Populism ◽  
Metro Manila

The article problematizes state penality as a mechanism of repression of precarious workers through a war on drugs in the Philippines. The narratives of 27 arrested ‘drug personalities’ in Metro Manila tell of how methamphetamine energizes bodies and motivates minds for productive work. Bidding to be classified as willing and able workers and family men, the study’s participants orient to a moral stratification that pits the ‘moral versus immoral’ and the ‘hardworking versus lazy’. Qualifying their drug use as strategic and calculated, they uphold the neoliberal values of individual choice and accountability. Their support for the anti-drug campaign stems from their recognition of a drug problem and the socioemotional toll of the dysfunctions of living in the slums. While trade liberalization facilitates methamphetamine inflow, a war on drugs fuels an authoritarian populism. As the state reaffirms symbolic mission to protect its citizens, it blames precarity to a problem population.

Neoliberalism in Mexican Cultural Theory

ARTMargins ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 86-87
Author(s):  
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Shadow Economy ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
Mexican Politics

This essay reviews two theoretical books on neoliberalism written by Mexican cultural critics: Capitalismo gore (Gore Capitalism), by Sayak Valencia, published originally in Spanish in 2010 and translated into English in 2018, and La tiranía del sentido común ( The Tyranny of Common Sense) by Irmgard Emmelhainz, published in Spanish in 2016 and yet to be translated into English. These works are pioneering in their discussion of the correlation between neoliberalism, subjectivity, and culture in Mexico, and they have become widely influential in broader discussions of art, visual culture, literature, and cultural production. They add to the work of economic and political historians, such as Fernando Escalante Gonzalbo and María Eugenia Romero Sotelo, by connecting landmark moments in neoliberalization (from the financialization of the global economy in the 1970s to the War on Drugs in the 2000s) to changing paradigms in art. Author Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado contextualizes both books within larger discussions of Mexican cultural neoliberalism and describes the theoretical frame works through which both authors read Mexican politics, art, and popular culture. In Valencia's case, Sánchez Prado discusses her idea of “gore capitalism”: a framework for understanding how neoliberalism relies on dynamics of the shadow economy and on the subjectification of gore (what Valencia calls endriago subjectivity) to function at the social and artistic levels. In the case of Emmelhainz, Sánchez Prado engages with the author's idea of semiocapitalism, a term borrowed from theorist Franco “Bifo” Berardi, which Emmelhainz deploys to account for the interrelation between culture and capital in the era of neoliberalism. As such, Sánchez Prado argues, Emmelhainz and Valencia provide ways of reading artistic and visual production, including museum curatorship and narcocultura, in ways that show their organic relationship to neoliberal economic and political reforms. Find the complete article at artmargins.com .

scholarly journals PHOTOESSAY: Buried in debt only to have their loved ones get a burial

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-157
Author(s):  
Fernando G. Sepe Jr
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
Drug Addicts ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Dead

The photoessay Healing The Wounds From the Drug War was the trail of people’s lives that have been disrupted by this brutal campaign in the Philippines. It was about what happens to those people left behind after the killings. Some who survive end up in decrepit jails. The families of the dead, mostly from the poor who get by in hand-to-mouth existence, end up buried in debt only to have their loved ones get a burial. But it also a story of hope for those given a new lease of life by organisations willing to assist in the rehabilitation of drug addicts.

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