An administrative error reveals the fear Filipinos have of the police
Sep 26th 2019WHEN RODRIGO DUTERTE threatens criminals, they pay attention. After all, since becoming president of the Philippines three years ago he has championed an all-out war on drugs that has claimed between 5,000 and 20,000 lives (the numbers are disputed). So when Mr Duterte warned a big group of convicts freed from prison by mistake that, if they failed to turn themselves back in, the police would return them to their cells dead or alive, 2,221 duly surrendered. The odd thing was, the prisons authority said that only 1,914 had been released in error. Although part of the discrepancy may have been because of further mistakes on the part of the aptly named Bureau of Corrections, part, at least, was because of the terror with which Filipinos now regard the police.Behind the turreted gateway of the National Penitentiary, south of Manila, lurk the likes of Antonio Sanchez, a notorious rapist and murderer. Mr Sanchez had believed he could get away with his crimes because he was mayor of a provincial town, but in 1993 a judge imprisoned him for 40 years. News this year that Mr Sanchez might be freed early for good behaviour caused an uproar. It then emerged that hundreds of other prisoners had already been freed early for good behaviour, even though the severity of their crimes should have made them ineligible. Mr Duterte dismissed the director-general of the Bureau of Corrections, called for a special prosecutor to investigate the debacle and instructed the convicts in question to report back to prison.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address