“Without love or mercy, I was nothing but ashes now.
” -NIght by Elie Wiesel.
In the Philippines president Duterte has launched a war against
drugs. He has said for drug dealers to turn themselves in, or be killed. But Duterte hasn't only been arresting/killing drug dealers. Drug users have also fallen victim to Duterte's wrath. An effective way of dealing with a problem, but a seriously inhuman one. Duterte said at a campaign rally, "If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you. I have no patience, I have no middle ground, either you kill me or I will kill you idiots," According to Newsweek as of June 30, 2017, Duterte's war has killed over 7,000 people. Most by “unnamed gunman” and 3,166 by police. This is only the people killed by Duterte's wrath. Many more have been arrested. The biggest problem is the people who have been arrested have to be tried in court. They cannot be admitted into a bigger prison until they have been tried. So the jails are being overflowed and the prisoners are living in seriously inhuman conditions. They are cramped into cells and hallways, and I have even seen a picture of prisoners sleeping in a stairwell. These people have been starved and have almost no hope. No one in a high ranking government position will stand up to Duterte. Fortunately, the international community has looked down on Duterte's methods, but there's nothing they can do without causing an international conflict.
Prisoners inside of Quezon
City Jail sleep on the floor with almost no cloths on. The quote above is a good representation of how these people feel. There's almost no hope for them, and Duterte has shown almost no mercy. With an almost an ensured sentence of life in prison, these people have nothing left to live for. Elie wiesel felt a similar way, which is why he said “I am nothing but ashes now” The conditions that he went through were not all that different from what the prisoners in the philippines are experiencing. Most of the prisoners are just victims of addiction and have done nothing wrong, but Duterte has made them out to be bad people so he can murder people. The same thing happened to the jews in the 40’s. Not to say that what’s happening in the philippines is equal, if not worse, than the Holocaust, because it’s not. But there are similarities. Both the Prisoners and the Jews were wrongly accused of being “bad people” who need/needed to be exterminated.