Philippines crackdown on crime hits youngest and poorest hard

A shirtless Filipino man is brought to police station on June 8, 2016 as part of Oplan Rody, president-in-waiting Rodrigo Duterte's anti-crime operation in Manila. Aaron Favila / Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines // He promised the people a crackdown on crime and though he has yet to take office, the Philippines president-elect Rodrigo Duterte is already proving as good as his word.

Enforcing existing but little-used laws, police have rounded up hundreds of children or their parents for supposedly failing to observe a night-time curfew for minors. Among the transgressors were a girl of about ten who was dragged away despite her protests that she had only gone outside to take out the rubbish, a teenage boy out buying noodles and a mother sleeping alfresco who woke to find her toddler son being prised from her arms by social workers as she was dragged away to a police station. The rubber bracelet on her arm marked her out as one of the president-to-be’s many supporters among the country’s poor who helped him win a landslide victory in the May 9 elections. Drunks and men with no shirts on roaming the slums of metropolitan Manila have also been rounded up.

Mr Duterte vowed to come down heavy on criminals — a promise that resonated with those living in the poorest neighbourhoods most afflicted by drugs and all the criminality hat follows in itheir wake. The crackdown has been dubbed Oplan Rody — Oplan being short for “operation plan” and Rody being both an acronym for “Rid the Streets of Drinkers and Youth” and also Mr Duterte’s nickname. Though he will not take office until June 30, police have already begun enforcing rarely-used used city laws imposing a night-to-dawn curfew for minors, a ban on drinking alcohol in the streets and a ban on going shirtless in public places.

Children found breaking the curfew are turned over to social workers and most are released back to their parents with a warning. Adults caught drinking alcohol get a warning the first time but can be fined, detained or both the next, explained Police Chief Inspector Bernabe Irinco Junior, who led the Manila operations.

“We are doing this so our young people can be free of crimes,” he said.

Rolando Roxas, whose 14-old son was apprehended while out buying noodles, said he approved of the measure as it was probably not a good idea to have children roaming the streets at night. However Jocelyn Chavez, a small vendor who works at night to support her five children complained that she had lost a day’s earnings to get her daughter back. “If I don’t work we will all have nothing to eat,” she said.

Mr Duterte was equally tough in his previous job as mayor of Davao, a city in southern Philippines. At his victory party in the city, he encouraged citizens to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and offered bounties to the police and military for the capture — dead or alive — of drug barons.

“My payment for a drug lord, if killed, is 5 million (pesos, or $109,000). If alive, it’s only 4.999 million,” he told supporters during his victory rally. Mr Duterte denies accusations that he was involved in the killings of alleged criminals in Davao by motorcycle-riding assassins known as “Davao death squads.”

However, several killings since his election have borne the marks of vigilante justice. One man was found dead with a cardboard notice beside him declaring him to be a thief and a drug addict. At least five suspected criminals were reportedly gunned down in Davao last month and other bodies have turned up elsewhere in the country. Mr Duterte’s choice to head the national police is Ronald deal Rose, formerly police chief in Davao who would like to see the Manila operation implemented all over the country. At an earlier news conference, he described how he expects police to confront drug criminals.

“If they put up a fight, we will kill them. If they don’t put up a fight, we will fight with them. If they do not fight back, they will live,” he said. When asked about a drug criminal’s right to due process of law like anyone else, a smiling Dela Rosa replied, “He will be given the right to remain silent ... forever.”

But there are fears that the new regime’s crackdown my lead to civil rights abuses. Loretta Ann Rosales, former head of the Commission on Human Rights, said Duterte’s declarations “brings out the beast” in law enforcers and officials.

“I don’t think we should keep silent on summary killings that go on in the process of this so-called anti-crime drive,” she said.

* Associated Press