At the height of Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” there was a huge billboard along C5 in Pasig City that advertised a pesticide called Tepox. It had an image of a dead cockroach, flat on its back and its feet up in the air, with this message: “Ipis. Nanlaban. Tepox.” The tongue-in-cheek ad played on the pesticide brand name’s closeness to the colloquial Filipino word “tepok” or “dead.” A truly deadly pesticide that product must be.

The billboard also echoed the repeated police justification for killing drug suspects: “nanlaban” or resisting arrest. Poor cockroach. And poor human beings. Treated like cockroaches and exterminated at every opportunity.

The drug war touched all Filipinos, no matter how peripherally. The husband of my wife’s former secretary was killed in “tokhang” (the original name of the Duterte antidrug program, which was an abbreviation of the Cebuano words “toktok” or “knock” and “hangyo” or “request”). Also killed were the son of an elderly caddie at a golf course where I play and the husband of an aunt’s long-time “kasambahay.” In fact, the word “natokhang” came to common use and meant a person who was killed in an antidrug operation. People would also say “dapat matokhang” to indicate someone who “should be killed.” The word came into popular use the way “salvage” did during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship to describe extrajudicial killings. 

That the words “salvage” and “natokhang” became part of daily discourse is testament to the Philippines’ sad history in which justice is as elusive as progress. 

More than the actual deaths, it was the repeated pronouncement of “kill, kill, kill” during the Duterte administration that damaged the country the most. A state-instigated program that in many instances resulted in extrajudicial killings could not but lead to the further cheapening of human life. 

From an extreme ideological perspective, it makes perfect sense. One of the defining features of a capitalist society such as ours is to assign monetary value to all human activity and to humans themselves. Clearly, the poor have very little monetary value, especially the unproductive poor. The working poor at least have their labor to sell and thus have some value, while the unproductive, drug-addicted poor are liabilities to the state. Might as well get rid of them then, the thinking goes.

Corollary to this breakdown in values is the mob mentality that gripped some Filipinos, rejoicing in the deaths of those unfortunate to be involved in illegal drugs. Tacit approval was given by making light of the killings and even using them in product advertising.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected to the presidency on his reputation as being tough on crime. His campaign appeal transcended class and geographic barriers, enjoying support and popularity among all economic classes and in all regions of the country despite coming from the far south, far from the national center of political power, and despite not having previously held an elective position beyond district representative and mayor of his native city of Davao.

His misogyny, irreverence, and foul mouth added to his tough-guy image and made him look like he could also be tough on corruption and government inefficiency.

Woe to the country.

Many people may have hoped that he would grow into the presidency and bring to the office at least a measure of dignity and temperance, if not statesmanship and national inspiration. But he somehow exhibited a discomfort with the presidency, preferring to be called “Mayor” instead of “President,” and held office in Davao and not in Malacañang early in his term. He even denigrated academic achievement (among others), noting in self-mockery that he barely passed his academic courses but that the honor students among his former classmates had become his subalterns. In international affairs, he did not seem to grasp the landmark significance of the Philippines’ victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration that invalidated China’s sweeping territorial claims that included the West Philippine Sea, dismissing the ruling as a piece of paper instead. These misappreciations showed a mental makeup that made him ill-suited to govern a country that needed a president with a vision and not a goon-like person with a foul mouth.

Even his signature antidrug war sought to replicate his Davao’s “Project Tokhang” on a nationwide scale, expanding into the more ominous-sounding “Oplan Double Barrel” which targeted drug dealers and syndicates as well. What may have worked in Davao did not translate to the country, where whatever excesses were multiplied a thousandfold.

Ah, well, power does have its privileges, as we witnessed when the former president was arrested by virtue of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity. At least we can all say with a straight face that he managed to stay alive: “Hindi nanlaban. Buhay pa.”