During my inauguration last (June) 30, 2016, I said that the fight against criminality and illegal drugs and
corruption will be relentless and sustained. I reiterate that commitment today, and that is why I call on the
Philippine National Police, the barangay chairmen, the Mayors, the Governors and all those occupying seats
of power and authority, not to lower their guard. There will be no let-up in this campaign. Double your
efforts. Triple them, if need be. We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last
pusher have surrendered or put behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish(Official Gazette, 2016).
During the Arroyo administration, the first war on drugs was declared in the country
(Stansfield, 2017). In her 2002 SONA, she called drug lords as the “enemies of the state” and
ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to support the inter-agency enforcement
bodies including the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Dangerous Drugs Board (DBB) and
the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) (Official Gazette, 2002). The drug problem
was seen as a military issue rather than a police issue (Stansfield, 2017).
Officially known as Oplan Double Barrel in the current administration, it is a nationwide
antidrug campaign that started in July 1, 2016 and initially led by the PNP. It has a
“twopronged approach” that targets drug syndicates and traffickers, also referred to as
Project HVT and low-level sellers and users or the Project Tokhang or Operation Knock and
Plead (Philippine National Police, 2016). Project Tokhang have 5 stages as outlined in the
PNP Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016: (a) Collection and Validation of
Information Stage; (b) Coordination Stage; (c) House to House Visitation Stage; (d)
Processing and Documentation Stage,;and the Monitoring and Evaluation Stage. In addition,
they aldo imposed random drug tests and conduct police operations such as entrapment,
community sweeps and armed raid” (ABS-CBN, cited in Ateneo School of Government (a),
2018).
While the PNP led the operations, local government officials, from the barangay captains up
to the provincial governors, were tasked to cooperate with the police. Government structures
were placed as early as June 2015 during the Aquino administration. Outlined in the DILG
Memorandum Circular No. 2015-63,the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Councils (BADAC) must
“plan, strategize, implement and evaluate programs and projects on drug abuse prevention
in barangays” (DILG Memorandum Circular 2015 - 63, 2015). The critical roles of barangay
officials were summarized by the Ateneo Sechool of Government (ASOG) in another study
that came out in June 2018, which highlights their involvement from preoperations until
post-operations (Ateneo School of Government (b), 2018). (See Table 2.1)
Table 1: Roles of Barangay Officials in the Operation Double Barrel
Pre-operations
During Operations
Panaghoy: The Philippine War on Drugs from the Perspective of Women
March 2019
Post-operations
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