Prelate says war on drugs an utter failure

"An utter failure."

This was how a Catholic prelate described the Duterte administration's war on drugs.

"We have to admit that the so-called war on drugs is an utter failure," Archdiocese of Manila Apostolic Administrator Bishop Broderick Pabillo said in his homily in a Mass in Manila, Sunday, March 14.

"Thousands were killed…was the number of drug users in the country reduced?" he added.

Just like the war on drugs, Pabillo believes the war against communist groups will also fail.

"It will suffer the same fate for this campaign against those accused of being communists. It will also be a failure because these are acts done in the dark," he said.

"Haven't our police and the government learned that falsely accusing, lying, and killing will never work?" added Pabillo.

The head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on the Laity then condemned the killing of nine activists in Calabarzon last March 7 during simultaneous raids conducted by the police.

"There is that usual alibi of suspects supposedly fighting back. They have search warrant – that search warrant is not a warrant to kill. And we also know the usual style of planting of evidence such as grenade or pistol in places being searched," said Pabillo.

"The government said it will investigate. A week has passed, where is the investigation? It will suffer the same fate like that of the thousands killed in the war on drugs whose cases are filed under investigation," he added.