One year into the Presidency of Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., the aftereffects of the drug war still linger. Pre-2016, the average BJMP jail population hovered around 90,000 Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs), which rose to as high as 160,000 PDLs in 2019 and still stays at 130,000 PDLs in 2023. Many of these PDLs were convicted and transferred to the BuCor facilities, whose population also rose from 40,000 in 2016 to 51,000 PDLs in 2023. This increase in PDL population was not matched by increases in jail and prison housing accommodations. Thus, our correctional system has the dubious recognition as the most congested correctional system in the world. Additionally, many of the drug arrestees also pleaded guilty for a lesser offense, based on the plea-bargaining ruling of the Supreme Court in 2017, which allowed the drug arrestees to apply for probation. Thus, the Parole and Probation Administration (PPA) carried the main burden of the drug war--- from a client population of 87,584 in 2016, their client population increased to 454,610 in 2020 (for a whopping 520% increase!) and, sadly, this population stays the same in 2023. The number of PPA personnel remained constant, and in some regions, was reduced due to early retirement and resignations. One PPA officer handles as many 1800 clients, which is the highest officer to client ratio in the world! President Marcos should consider the growing empirical data that shows that the drug war was based on faulty assumptions: 1. That there were many Filipino drug users (wrongly estimated at 7.8 million in 2019 or 7 percent of the Filipino population but more accurate studies estimate it at 2 percent). 2. That many of the drug users are addicted (in fact, only around 5 percent of the drug users are found to be dependent on drugs, majority are casual users and are fully functional). 3. That the drug addicts are extremely violent (in fact, most drug dependents usually only harm themselves). 4. That the only solution is by killing and putting them in prison for a very long time. Countries that waged a brutal drug war already have shown that it only: 1. Exacerbated the prison crowding. 2. Increased the budget in jails and prisons that could have been used to support health, education, and other basic services. 3. Increased public insecurity, given that the drug problem was only temporarily displaced, and the root cause of the problem was not addressed, and now, it is all coming back with a vengeance. To address these problems, the following are recommendations from advocates and scholars who have investigated these concerns: 1. Shifting the drug policy to harm reduction approaches. This approach looks at the drug problem as a medical, not a criminal justice issue. If people are indeed dependent on drugs, there are proven and tested ways to help them address their dependency where harms are minimized, and they are still fully functional. 2. The President and Congress must support the modernization of the Parole and Probation Agency. PPA is an agency that is best equipped to deal with the supervision and rehabilitation of the drug dependents. They have the ability and capacity to effectively reintegrate the drug offenders as responsible members of the community. However, they need additional manpower, facilities and resources. Community based corrections are also less costly. 3. The President should consider commuting the life sentences imposed on PDLs who maintained their innocence and did not plead guilty. There are currently around 8,000 PDLs in the Bucor prisons who were convicted with a possession of less than 1 gram of shabu but are first time non-violent drug users. Should they plead guilty during trial, the court would have handed them a penalty of not more than 6 years, which would have been probation-able. Putting these individuals for 30 to 40 years for a low-level drug offending will translate to huge drain to the national budget. These simple solutions will go a long way in rationalizing our drug policies and provide a sustainable, effective, and less costly approach to a manufactured problem.
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