What about a war on poverty?

How remarkable is it, then, that in the first 100 days of the Duterte presidency, hardly anything was said by the administration about a war on poverty that would at least match in zeal and urgency its flagship war on drugs and crime? Nearly every single speech by Duterte since he assumed the nation’s highest office has been about his forceful campaign against the drug menace, invariably accompanied by his bellicose reaction to world leaders’ criticism of how the campaign is being conducted.

No doubt it’s an effective platform; after all, he won office resoundingly with it. There should be no question, too, that drug trafficking deserves a strong response, its syndicates exposed and neutralised. More than once, Duterte has cited the effect of addiction on Filipino families as the reason for his hatred of trafficking – that homes are splintered, lives are wrecked and crimes proliferate whenever drugs come into the picture.

This is true, but hardly a complete picture. Criminal behaviour extends far beyond the spread of drugs alone. As Cielito Habito, former director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, has pointed out, “poverty and inequality are other important reasons for criminality”. Many are reduced to committing petty crimes simply to survive; the lack of jobs that would put food on the table drives people to desperate measures – including, for some, becoming street pushers and drug mules, the lowest and therefore most expendable segment in the totem pole of drug syndicates.

In the past three months, they have borne the brunt of the killings that have been unleashed by Duterte’s exhortations to the public in general, and to the police in particular, to be ruthless in dealing with anyone with the barest whiff of involvement in drugs. Most of the 3,000 or so persons killed in the war on drugs – those whose bodies were found dumped like trash, trussed in duct tape and adorned with a cardboard sign branding them as drug pushers – come from the poorest sectors of society. Big-fish suspects like Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, get choice treatment – a chance to plead innocence before the cameras and even take temporary shelter in the police chief’s official residence.

In contrast to the administration’s overarching focus on drugs, the antipoverty measures have come piecemeal – the Department of Agrarian Reform’s bold moves to fully implement land redistribution, for one, and the Department of Labour and Employment’s announced policy to end the practice of contractualiaation in the workforce. But, three months on, Duterte himself has yet to make an official speech detailing his administration’s battle plan to combat poverty, bring prices down, open up more job opportunities, and ensure that the average 6-per-cent economic growth he inherited from the Aquino administration is finally felt in tangible ways by the majority of the population. Even his State of the Nation Address was short on detail, much less focus, on the economic tasks required to bring immediate relief to the masses trapped in grinding misery.

Would that the same energy and fervour this administration has shown in its war on drugs were applied as well to the more crucial fight against poverty.