This is the scene after a police operation against illegal drugs in Manila, Philippines: two dead people who may or may not have been dealers or even users.

Filipino president & thug-in-chief Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to declare martial law if the country’s judiciary interferes with his vigilante war on illegal drugs. He has already engaged police, vigilante squads, & now the military in this campaign.

Last Sunday, he read out a list of judges, mayors, politicians, & police officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking to intimidate them. Some of them may well be involved, just as those same types are involved in drug trafficking everywhere. It’s likely that Filipino banks are rolling in dough from money laundering.

But shooting down alleged small-time drug hustlers & more likely drug addicts in the street has nothing whatsoever to do with addressing drug trafficking in the Philippines or anywhere else–& Rodrigo Duterte knows that.

There’s another political agenda going on here having nothing to do with drug peddling but with terrorizing the Filipino people into compliance with the re-militarization & neoliberal transformation of the country which is impoverishing millions of working people.

Our fullest solidarity with the struggle of Filipino activists against this vigilante war.

(Photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA)