Anti Drug Day Essay In English
Cara Canellas
Human Rights Watch also investigated the killings of adults in which police showed little to no regard for the safety and welfare of children, often conducting raids in the middle of the night while the entire family was at home. In many raids, children witnessed the killing of a parent, or were present while their parent was dragged away and shot.
The loss of a parent who is the main breadwinner can plunge an already impoverished family into even more extreme poverty. Many children are left with no choice but to work, and some end up homeless and living in the streets, further exposing themselves to danger, violence, and criminal activity.
Families have been wary about approaching the government for help because they consider the police and other government officials to be responsible for the loss they have suffered. This leaves the children and their families left with only programs supported by civic and nongovernmental groups, particularly those from the Roman Catholic Church and a few Protestant and ecumenical groups. In some communities where violence is frequent, parish priests and lay workers have been leading the effort to help by providing psycho-social (mental health) support, economic assistance, support for children to attend school, and help in finding and supporting livelihoods for affected families. But as the killings continue, such voluntary efforts have been overwhelmed and are insufficient to address the needs of affected children.
Human Rights Watch believes governments should ensure respect for human rights in their policies and practices on the use, possession, production, and distribution of drugs. We oppose the criminalization of the personal use of drugs and the possession of drugs for personal use. To deter, prevent, and remedy the harmful use of drugs, governments should rely on non-penal regulatory and public health approaches that do not violate human rights.
When possible, Human Rights Watch conducted the interviews in a private and safe setting, without the presence of others. Several interviews with children were done in the presence of a parent or guardian. In five cases in which the interview subjects agreed in advance, the interviews were conducted in front of a Human Rights Watch video crew. Interviews were conducted mainly in Tagalog but also in Visayan and English. The interviewees were not compensated but Human Rights Watch paid travel and food expenses when, for security reasons, we interviewed them some distance from their homes.
While the daily number of killings has declined somewhat since the carnage of the first year of the campaign in 2016-2017, killings still occur on a frequent basis.[7] In the early stages of the campaign, killings were concentrated in the cities comprising the sprawling Metro Manila area, with its vast impoverished neighborhoods where the drug raids usually occur. However, more recently, the violence has expanded to adjacent provinces such as Laguna, Cavite, and Bulacan.[8] The killings have also worsened in other urban areas, particularly in the central Philippine province of Cebu.[9]
President Duterte has sanctioned[10] and encouraged[11] the killings. In speech after speech, Duterte has ordered the police to kill drug suspects, and even to plant evidence during raids.[12] He has promised the police cash rewards and promotions for killing drug suspects.[13] Officials who have followed his orders have later secured plum positions in government, among them Ronald dela Rosa, his first Philippine National Police chief whom Duterte strongly supported in his ultimately successful run for a Senate seat in May 2019.[14] Duterte also promised police officers impunity for rights abuses, stating he would protect them, and ultimately pardon them, if ever they are convicted for enforcing his anti-drug policies.[15]
Other political opposition figures, such as Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, also face various retaliatory legal cases as a result of their critical stance against the administration.[40] At time of writing, Trillanes is facing incitement to sedition and kidnapping charges.[41]
The children of Hamed U., 29, a carpenter in General Santos City, on the southern island of Mindanao, were so upset by his death by the police in March 2018, that they asked their grandfather to demolish a part of their house that had been his room. The children, according to their grandfather Abdul U., always became sad each time they saw the room, so he had it torn down.[85]
Jennifer told her mother, Malou M., about what happened but she did not make much of it at first. Then finally, the month after the killing, Jennifer decided to drop out of school. Malou was disappointed but recognized that her daughter was going through a rough time. She recalled:
Some surviving parents manage to get assistance from NGOs who help victims while others seek help from their parishes. Malou was able to find work at the Project SOW in Quezon City, where she worked as a tailor after her husband died. Even then, she said, the income was hardly adequate:
For a wife and mother like Filomena D., it has been particularly difficult because she has six young children at home and had depended entirely on the earnings of her husband, Felixberto D., a 48-year-old seller of pillows and beddings in Labugon village, Cebu City. He was shot dead in the presence of his children by the police during a raid on June 27, 2018. Filomena said:
Jennifer has a different version. She said about seven men in civilian clothes barged into their small home that day, looking for Benigno. The men ordered everybody out. But Jennifer clung to her father, hugging him as he sat on the sofa, and held up his work ID for the police to see.
Witnessing what happened to her father was traumatic enough for Jennifer and her family. But the consequence of his death only added to their suffering. Benigno worked in a junk shop in another district of Manila and was the family breadwinner. He was only home the day he was killed because it was the birthday of another daughter.
Every now and then, the family takes a minute to pray at the image of the Holy Family tacked above the couch. There are days when Jennifer just sits all day on the couch that was punctured by one of the bullets that took her father from her. She hugs the couch, smelling the frayed and faded seat cover, imagining the man who had sat in it, remembering the father she once had.
As Karla and Robert walked around Mandaluyong that day looking for their brother John, chatting up friends and acquaintances, high-fiving jeepney drivers and street vendors, it was clear they seemed comfortable living in the bustle of the city.
Kristina D., 27, and her sister, Diana D., 26, were very close siblings, almost like best friends. They shared many things, among them that they worked at the same job at the same beer house and restaurant in General Santos City. But most importantly, they shared a responsibility for their respective children. Both were not married but had children in past relationships; Kristina had two children, aged eight and ten, while Diana has one, aged seven. All of them lived in one hut made of bamboo on the outskirts of a city in the southern Philippines, and the children were cared for by their mother, Carmen D., when the sisters were at work.
One night in August 2017, two men arrived on a motorcycle, entered the restaurant where the sisters were working, sat down, and ordered beer. Not long after they took swigs of beer, one of the men drew a gun and aimed it at Diana, who was attending to another customer a few tables away. Kristina saw what was happening, lunged at the gunman, who fired four times and hit Kristina instead: twice in the chest, once in the knee and once in the arm.[122] The gunman kept firing even as Kristina fell to the floor, hitting Diana twice: once in the face, another in the spine. Kristina died on the spot; Diana survived but is now paralyzed from the waist down. The gunmen managed to escape on their motorcycle.
Diana did not want to go into details of why she was targeted, but she said it might have something to do with a previous side gig she did providing information to the local police about drug dealing in the city. But she was not sure whether the police or the drug syndicates were behind the attack.
When Human Rights Watch visited her on May 21, 2018, Diana was inside their hut, the cheerful Hello Kitty posters that adorned the room doing nothing to dispel the sense of helplessness inside. Dangling beneath the bed made of bamboo and coconut wood was a bag of urine from a catheter, its tube snaking up to Diana as she sat on a four-inch thick foam slab. Carmen, her 49-year-old mother, was the more emotional of the two as she narrated what had become of her grandchildren, all of whom were still in elementary school.
Prior to dropping out, Melanie and Kenneth would go to school without lunch money and their teachers would take pity on them and feed them. But that arrangement did not last long and, soon after, both children stopped attending classes. Marilyn noted that other families in her community received the modest 4Ps, or conditional cash transfer program benefits, from the DSWD, but they did not.[127] She did not bother to ask why, except to say that she was ashamed and scared to ask for help from government.
Essay on Drug Addiction: Drug addiction is not a disease as it may seem to many people. It is a psychological disorder that leads a person to use drugs excessively. Even though the person may know that the drugs are harming his body, he cannot control his urge to consume more and more drugs. The addiction may start with a small quantity but gradually it increases with time. The person becomes a slave of drugs and cannot live without them. He may start stealing money to buy drugs. In some cases, he may even sell his body to buy drugs.
After going through these essays you would be able to know what Drug Addiction is, how Drug Addiction is harmful to health, what are ways to overcome Drug Addiction, impact of Drug Addiction on human behaviour, etc.
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