Political Constructions of People Who Use Drugs in the Philippines: A Qualitative Content Analysis

• Main Author: Lasco, Gideon
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: Drug war; Philippines; Politics of drug use; Qualitative content analysis; Political Science; Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance; Sociology
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/dev-stud-faculty-pubs/169; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/dev-stud-faculty-pubs/article/1169/viewcontent/1_s2.0_S0955395924002032_main.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Background This paper examines the political constructions of people who use drugs in the Philippines throughout the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte (2016–2022), during which the government engaged in a ‘war on drugs’ and promoted a punitive drug regime. Methods Building on and drawing inspiration from the global drug policy scholarship that has looked at the ways in which drugs are framed and problematised in various domains, this study used qualitative content analysis to review 96 documents from national government agencies - including strategic action plans, directives, memorandums, guidelines, annual reports, and legislative measures. Results Foremost, the study finds that various terms were interchangeably used to refer to ‘drug users’ - dependent, offender, personality, abuser - and all of them contributed to the problematisation of people who use drugs as a societal “menace”. As “drug dependents”, they were likewise portrayed as necessitating treatment or rehabilitation. Moreover, presented as victims or passive subjects, their agency and subjectivity are not acknowledged in the documents, even as counter-discourses, mainly from opposition lawmakers, challenge these portrayals and call for people-centered, harm reduction approaches. Conclusion Overall, these overlapping framings cast people who use drugs simultaneously as victims, criminals, deviants, and sick individuals to the detriment of their security, health, and well-being - and to the retrogression of drug policy in the country.