The Duterte administration’s war on drugs has brought to mind the Marcos regime’s tactics of sowing fear and violence, the head of the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag) said last week in a media seminar sponsored by the European Union. Jose Manuel Diokno, law dean of De La Salle University and son of the late antimartial law stalwart Jose W. Diokno, recalled how the dictator Ferdinand Marcos sowed fear against communists and criminals to justify his political crackdown. We are witnessing hundreds if not thousands of people taking the law into their own hands … using fear and violence to enforce the law,” the Flag chairman said. ADVERTISEMENT“This is the very same fear and violence that the Martial Law regime used so effectively four decades ago. President Duterte’s bloody war against drugs has drawn denunciation from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer October 09, 2016 17:37 UTC