Introduction

Drug abuse is one of the main problems in the Philippines. Last June 2016 President Rodrigo Duterte launched a project campaigning “war on drugs” also known as “Oplan Tokhang”. It is a project of Philippine National Police (PNP) that was implemented all over the country. A Visayan word “TOKTOK HANGYO” means to approach and talk (Estrada, 2016).

In 2017, Malacañang declared that Negros Island region is the 3rd most drug- affected in the Philippines. There are 1,219 barangays in Negros Island and 81.36% of these are drug affected. Police officers reported that there is an alarming drug situation in Negros due to the number of drug dens dismantled and big volume of dangerous drugs found in the drug operation in the province (Espina, 2017).

Police are the executive officers and one of the important pillars of criminal justice system, police is empowered to enforce the law of the land under the legal framework prescribed to ensure the safety and security of the public and society in general. The term police are most commonly associated with state they are authorized to exercise the police duties and power of within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. In the administration of criminal justice the role of police is of primary importance. The criminal justice process gets succeeded and initiated through the police. Public attitudes serve as a potential factor to affecting justice institutions. The police were first in the line of public image in this. They may often be the focus of public criticism, because these are usually general, inclusive and widely opposing, a policeman of superhuman qualities is needed to disrupt or change the prevailing community image (Janaki, 2016).

This study aims to explore the experiences of Philippine National Police who were assigned to conduct Oplan Tokhang and to determine the effectiveness of Oplan Tokhang as a  national law enforcement project in relation to drug reported incidents in Bacolod City.   The respondents of this study will be the PNP Personnel of Bacolod City Police Stations using the qualitative method.

METHODS

This section presents the following areas: research design of the study, participants of the study, instrument, data gathering procedure, and ethical considerations.

Research Design of the Study

This study employed a qualitative research design, specifically the descriptive phenomenological design. Phenomenology has become useful and meaningful design among educational and social sciences researches. Most of them, have understood that phenomenology is a genuine manner of representing the realities that participants experience in their lives. The main aspect of this is to understand the essence of the experience that participants share within a common ground (Creswell, 2014). This means that it is necessary to have exploring and understanding regarding the meaning as to why individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human situation.

Participants of the Study

This study involved persons who have been taken part in the Philippine National Police’s (PNP’s) Oplan Tokhang Program that are within the vicinity of Bacolod City.  Participants were identified using selection criteria, with the aid of Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO). Selection criteria are standards that participants need to meet and these incorporate capabilities, qualifications, learning, aptitudes, capacities and experiences. Inclusion criteria of the participants are the following: (1) they are a licensed member of the Philippine National Police; (2) they have conducted or have involved themselves in the Oplan Tokhang Program of the government under Philippine National Police for at least a year; (3) they have been in service to the police for at least seven years.

Included in this study were nine participants who were assigned to take part in cases that involve knocking on the doors of those who are suspected to be illegal drug carriers, dealers, or users. This study utilized a purposive sampling technique, where participants were gathered based on the police station they were assigned to. Specifically, familiarization of police officers implementing Oplan Tokhang in each station took place before every engagement with the participants.

Instrument

An interview guide was used as the essential information instrument for the study. The guide had two sections. The first section contained fundamental data of the participants and the second part contains the guide questions on which the interview revolved. The guide questions were made by the researcher. The second section of the instrument made inquiries concentrating on the participants encounters on the Oplan Tokhang.

Data Gathering Procedure

The following data collection procedures were observed for this study.

A letter of intent was provided and addressed to the head of BCPO (Bacolod City Police Office). The content revolved around the request for participants for this research, thus allowing the head to be this study’s gatekeeper. The researcher presented an ethical consent form for approval, in order to have the eventual interaction with the participants.

A preliminary interview was conducted for the gathering of demographic profiles. As soon as the participants were identified, inclusion criteria should be possessed by each one of them. The researcher then personally met the participants individually to ask their consent and informed them of the objectives and aim of the study. The consent provided the participants the assurance that in the conduct of the study, their profiles would remain confidential. After the conformity of the participants, a recorded face to face interview was done in their respective Police Stations and it took place inside their offices. Information would be ensured to be confidential between the researcher and the interviewees.

Ethical Considerations

Before conducting the interview, the participants were given an informed consent in order for the researcher to ask permission to conduct the study. The instrument served as an invitation and request if they are willing to participate in the study. The researcher looked for participants who fit the inclusion criteria that are provided for this study. Researcher and the participants agreed with having full awareness of the objectives of this study, and at any event during the course of this study, participants was free to discontinue or withdraw from participating then on. Furthermore, the intentions, instructions, risks and advantages were incorporated into the informed consent, and the participants were assured of confidentiality among the researcher. No compensation was given for the participants in this study.

Discussion

Drug Surrenderees (Oplan Tokhang)

          The Philippine government is completely aware of the threatening rise of drug abuse in the country. Considering the fact that Rodrigo Duterte became the president of the Philippines on June 2016, he has released propaganda about conflict on drugs that was the outcome of thousands of reported death of drug dealers and users by extrajudicial killings throughout the country (Human Rights Watch, 2018). This campaign program in opposition to drugs has claimed hundreds of lives. Human rights agencies say he is to blame of unlawful act in opposition to humanity, but that is with only little consolation to those mourning for their cherished ones who had been killed during the war on drugs.

One of Duterte’s known campaign in his war on drugs is the “Oplan Tokhang” the country’s law enforcement and a task of the Philippine National Police that was put into effect all over the country. “Tokhang” came from a Visayan word which means to come and talk. Throughout and on the conduct of the Oplan Tokhang, each crew should have four participants that is led by the deputy leader of police and that they must be in their entire police uniform (Estrada, 2016). The Philippine National Police stated that drug suspects are requested to fill out and sign a biographical profile form or any other associated files, however, taking of pictures and different confirmation which includes fingerprinting are no longer obligatory and has to be made by the decision of the alleged drug suspect (Peralta, 2018).

Somewhere in the range of 4,000 drug suspects surrendered in over multi month since specialists relaunched the counter unlawful drug crusade “Oplan Tokhang”. Under the campaign, police go from house to house to persuade drug suspects to surrender. It was relaunched with stricter rules in January 2018, including constraining its lead to daytime.

About two years since president Rodrigo Duterte’s war against drugs, police have gathered together 63,728 individuals in Cebu under the Oplan Tokhang, which the majority of them are still in the initial seven months of the campaign. A report from the Police Regional Office 7 claims that there are more than 55,000 of the surrenderees who were found to be illegal substance users. While some of them have undergone rehabilitation process which was supposed to help them become productive members of the society (Lim, 2018).

In Negros, articles by Espina (2016) states that almost 5,000 drug suspects were yield in Negros Island District. Over seven days since the Duterte organization began, an aggregate of 4,786 drug pushers and users have surrendered to the authorities in the Negros Island Area. From July 1 to 9, police records appeared, 1,455 drug suspects have handed themselves over to authorities in Negros Occidental, while 3,331 yielded in Negros Oriental.

Substance dependents were then arranged by their separate barangay authorities to frequently answer to the barangay office for observing. As per the Mandaluyong police, the dependents pledge they are currently dismissing illicit substances and are willing to change. Roxas (2016) discussed that an excess of 100 speculated drug clients and pushers in Agusan del Sur willfully surrendered the police on Wednesday in dread of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s guarantee that crooks will be killed under his organization. Duterte encouraged people in general during his thanksgiving party in Davao City to join his anti-crime administration. He likewise said he is supportive of subject captures for street drug suppliers and the utilization of guns if they oppose capture. Substance-dependent users are those surrenderees who willingly wants to be reformed since it is a voluntary act and not compulsory. Since most of the surrenderees are providers for their family, an example is the habal-habal or motorcycle for hire drivers. It is highly recommended that clients should have voluntary involvement in the treatment process. Since it is more likely that the client would comply with the treatment when it is given to them on a voluntary condition, rather than being imposed on them by their loved ones or the society (DOH, 2018).

The Philippine’s War on Drugs

Flatt (2018) cited the words uttered by President Duterte in September which states that there were three million Jews massacred by Hitler and President Duterte would be happy to slaughter three million drug addicts. These words have become notorious worldwide. Human Right Watch (2018) states that since taking office on June 30, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has done a “war on drugs” that has prompted the passing away of more than 12,000 Filipinos to date, generally coming from the urban poor. No less than 2,555 of the killings have been credited to the Philippine National Police. Duterte and other senior authorities have affected and induced the killings in a crusade that could add up to wrongdoings against humankind. Some authors such as Macalalad and Rayco (2018) assert that the crusade keeps running in two levels, to be specific Oplan Tokhang (a portmanteau for thump and argue in Cebuano) and Oplan HVT (High-Value Target), with the previous all the more reverberating as it worked on the barangay or community level.

           According to Simangan (2017), in spite of global judgment of extrajudicial and vigilante killings, the measurements hint at no backing off and the organization stays firm in annihilating individuals occupied with illegal drugs. This asks whether the Philippine “war on drugs” is a demonstration of destruction utilizing Gregory H. Stanton’s stages of genocide. In light of information drawn from news articles, strategy issuances, government briefings, open discourses and accessible drug related measurements, this article contends that Duterte’s rhetoric and policies fulfill the phases of order, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial (Simangan, 2017). Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte promised to manage the force of his bloody war on drugs would be as “relentless and chilling” as amid his initial two years in control (Al Jazeera Media Network, 2018). As the quantity of losses keep on surging, the news and photos on the horrifying “drug war” have never lost space on national broadsheets, tabloids, and telecom companies. The reports extend from the killings and arrests of suspected people engaged with illicit drug exchange, restoration endeavors of the administration, and fact‐checking of explanations of Duterte on the drug war (Macalalad & Rayco, 2018).

            Human rights groups are frightened by the slaughter and say thousands have been summarily executed in what adds up to deliberate killing of drug users in the poorest communities. President Rodrigo Duterte has told human rights bunches scrutinizing his deadly anti-drug war to “go to hell” in the wake of requesting police back to the cutting edges of the crackdown. Duterte said, “Your concern is human rights, mine is human lives,” adding that the crackdown aimed to stop drugs destroying families.

            In Negros Occidental, Espina (2016) discussed that taking motivation from President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOPPO) reported Saturday, June 4, and they have heightened their crusade against illegal drugs. The NOPPO said they seized in regards to P8 million ($173,000) worth of illegal drugs in the initial 5 months of the year, recuperating P3.025 million ($65,000) in May alone. Furthermore, in Negros Oriental, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has detailed noteworthy gains in the administration’s war against hard drugs amid the main year in office of President Rodrigo R. Duterte. The Acting common police executive said records at the Negros Oriental Philippine National Police Commonplace Office (NORPPO) demonstrated that number of appropriated shabu went up by as much as 47 percent.

            Additionally, Espina (2017) argues that the 4 dioceses in Negros Island say the Duterte administration’s war on drugs ‘depends on a childish and shallow comprehension of the issue’. In their announcement, the Catholic pioneers reprimanded a twofold standard in the drug war. They condemned the gathered particularity in dealing with the drug war, where the poor are the fundamental casualties. The church pioneers tested themselves and their wards to pray that the nation may end the drug danger, yet in a way that is just and legitimate; to strengthen evangelization especially in shaping consciences and promoting life, beginning with families; and to work with government, common society, and different places of worship in tranquilize avoidance and recovery (Espina, 2017).

Duterte’s Drug War in the Philippines: New Campaign, Old Problems

For the third time since 2016, the Philippine government has relaunched the controversial anti-drug campaign, known locally as Oplan Tokhang, amid continuing concern that the police-led operations have led to massive human rights abuses.

Tokhang has long been a top priority of President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to eradicate illegal drugs in three to six months after his rise to power in 2016.But soon after it began, Tokhang was unsurprisingly blamed for the spate of extrajudicial killings in urban poor communities, with the police claiming that they were only forced to retaliate because suspected drug operators and peddlers were resisting arrests.

Duterte suspended Tokhang in early 2017 after some police were accused of illegally abducting a South Korean businessman under a Tokhang operation. Several months later, the police resumed Tokhang which quickly produced a surge of drug-related killings all over Metro Manila, the nation’s biggest urban center.

But it was the mysterious deaths of teenagers under police custody last August 2017 which generated a loud public outcry against Tokhang. This inspired the biggest anti-Tokhang gathering in September and it was also credited with partly causing a drop in the nationwide trust rating of Duterte.

Bowing to public pressure, Duterte removed the police from the anti-drug campaign in October and transferred the mandate to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. By this time, the Duterte government had already been accused of conducting a ‘war on drugs’ that had claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people, according to some estimates by human rights groups.

The police supposedly underwent rigorous retraining in the past several months as a new feature. Also, Tokhang operations will apparently be conducted by a group of four policemen only on weekdays and during office hours. Lastly, the police will only visit the houses of those listed in the drug watchlist which should be based on verified intelligence reports. Suspected drug personalities will be invited to surrender to the nearest police station or barangay hall.

Furthermore, the police are allowed to invite the media, church groups, and members of civil society to join and monitor the Tokhang operations. The police are also encouraged to bring a bible, the holy rosary, and other religious materials to encourage drug suspects to peacefully surrender. To enforce discipline, the police now has a one-strike policy wherein a precinct commander will be relieved from his post if one of his Tokhang teams violated the new guidelines. The police provincial director and regional director will be relieved from duties as well if several precinct commanders were found guilty of violating the new rules.

Since its relaunch, the police claimed that 2,127 Tokhang operations succeeded in forcing the surrender of 821 drug personalities. Some police officers said the Tokhang campaign is now ‘bloodless’. That may not be entirely accurate, because there were several news reports about Tokhang-related killings on the same week when the police resumed its anti-drug operations.

Human rights groups were also skeptical of the rebranded Tokhang. Karapatan characterized it as “a superficial makeover of a policy that has earned public condemnation.” It added that Tokhang remains a short-sighted solution because it relies purely on a militarist approach in solving a comprehensive, deep-rooted problem. The group warned that the new Tokhang will also fail if corruption is not curbed in the ranks of the police.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines urged the police to focus on issues that matter most to the public instead of engaging in ‘theatrics’ like the bringing of religious items during Tokhang operations. For Philippine police Chief Ronald de la Rosa, the new Tokhang aims to prove that the police can be trusted in solving the drug menace.

“There is an on-going internal cleansing in our organization. What we are doing right now is to prevent that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated,” he told the media. This statement is significant, since it constitutes a tacit admission that Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ has repeatedly failed despite being the main agenda of the government.

But the relaunch of Oplan Tokhang, despite its notorious record, could be less about enhancing the image of the police than a political tool intended to revive panic among the poor and discourage the rest of the population to challenge the president who has already stated his intention to amend the 1987 Constitution this year, a divisive move that could spark a political crisis as the ruling party attempts to further consolidate its power.

For this and other reasons, the police spin on the relaunch of the ‘bloodless’ Tokhang is likely to fall on deaf ears to informed observers in the Philippines. Ultimately, the seeds of doubt with respect to Duterte’s war on drugs are tied not to opposition to the president for opposition’s sake, but legitimate fears that it could be used to silence not just drug suspects but also the critics of the Duterte government. Multiple relaunches of failed policies are unlikely to resolve that underlying distrust.

Rising Outrage Over Duterte’s War on Drugs in the Philippines

Public anger is rising in the Philippines over the reported surge of extrajudicial killings that have victimized several children and teenagers. During his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July, President Rodrigo Duterte signaled the intensification of the “war on drugs,” which he defended as necessary and crucial to fight rampant criminality and corruption across the country.

Duterte’s “war on drugs” has been controversial from the very beginning, since it allegedly involved the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug peddlers and users. The anti-drug operation (Oplan Tokhang) has already killed 7,000 persons, but some human rights groups think that the number of drug-related killings could reach 12,000 if we are going to include the unreported cases. Police officials have consistently claimed that rival drug gangs are behind the extrajudicial killings. They also insisted that state forces are only forced to retaliate because suspects have been violently resisting arrests.

Aside from making Tokhang the top priority of his government, Duterte is accused of abetting impunity by vowing to protect cops who kill drug suspects. Early in 2017, the killing of a Korean businessman inside a police camp and the backlash it generated forced the government to suspend Tokhang. But in a matter of weeks, the killings resumed in poor urban communities.

Duterte’s SONA speech worried many because it was believed that it could lead to more drug-related deaths instead of addressing the demand of human rights groups and the international community to rethink the methods of Tokhang. As if on cue, police intensified Tokhang operations and produced a record number of killings in a matter of days. A Tokhang operation on a single night killed 32 drug suspects in Bulacan province and 26 in the capital Manila. Duterte praised this operation. “Thirty-two were killed in a massive raid in Bulacan. That is good. If we could kill 32 every day, then maybe we could reduce what ails this country,” he said in a media interview. The media also reported that a 17-year-old student was killed by the police during a Tokhang-related arrest in Caloocan, a northern suburb of Manila. Later, CCTV footage of the crime scene showed a boy being dragged by the police which convinced many that the Tokhang operation killed another innocent person. The police were loudly condemned for this atrocity. Duterte, too, was blamed for inciting police abuse.

The media reminded the public that this is not the first time that a minor was killed in a Tokhang operation. In fact, 54 children have been killed already since 2016. The Senate conducted a probe of the incident; the powerful Catholic Church issued a strong statement against drug-related killings; the opposition pinned the blame on Duterte’s aggressive brand of leadership; and a funeral protest was held to dramatize the clamor for justice amid the spate of extrajudicial killings. A member of Duterte’s Cabinet complained that the incident is being blown out of proportion. The police defended itself by releasing a report which tagged the teenager as a suspected drug courier. But many continue to express outrage over the killing of a student. Sensing a shift in public opinion about Tokhang, Duterte modified his stance by vowing to punish rogue cops.

Public anger has yet to subside when a similar Tokhang case was reported by the media. This was followed by more news reports highlighting the tortured bodies of teenagers who allegedly died while under police custody. Duterte seemed baffled by the reports and accused sinister forces of trying to sabotage the government’s anti-drug campaign. But Duterte’s problem is his refusal to acknowledge that the main problem is the framework of Tokhang itself. The obsession for quick results to end the drug menace, plus the alleged bounty for every dead drug operator, probably fueled the brutal killings in poor communities.

Compounding Duterte’s woes is the extrajudicial killing of a Lumad (indigenous people) teenager in a militarized community in Mindanao, where Martial Law remains in effect. The issue exposed the bloody legacy of Duterte’s decision to launch an “all-out war” against communist rebels instead of pursuing peace talks. Some believe the issue of human rights abuses involving children is aimed at distracting the attention of the public after a Senate probe implicated Duterte’s son in the shipment of illegal drugs in the country’s ports. It may be true. But it does not invalidate the urgent demands to rethink Tokhang, to probe and punish police abuse, and to make Duterte accountable for the worsening human rights violations that are taking place across the country.

PNP wants P900M budget for ‘Tokhang’

Sept. 01–Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate found the P900 million budget being asked by the Philippine National Police (PNP) for its anti-drug war staggering. The lawmaker on Thursday expressed alarm because of the huge jump: this year, the PNP’s Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded or Oplan Tokhang had a budget of P20 million. Zarate pointed out that with a P20-million budget, there have been over 12,000 reported deaths related to the government’s war against illegal drugs. “With a P900 million budget for the Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded, how many more deaths are we expecting here? How many more Kian delos Santoses will die?” Zarate asked, referring to the 17-year-old boy killed by policemen during an anti-drug operation in Caloocan City. “Sa ganito ho kasing ratio ay papatak na baka umabot sa 540,000 deaths ang mangyayari sa dagdag na budget sa Oplan Double Barrel. Sana naman ho ay hindi na mangyari ito at huli na ang nangyari kay Kian delos Santos (With this ratio it is possible that deaths will reach 540,000 if the budget for Oplan Double Barrel is increased. I hope this will not happen, that what happened to Kian delos Santos will be the last),” he said.

The House committee on appropriations conducted the pre-plenary conference for the proposed 2018 budget for the Department of the Interior and Local Government. Plenary debates on the 2018 national budget were set on September 4. Also on Thursday, the PNP said Oplan Tokhang is one of the best programs the police organization ever had. Police Community Relations Group (PCRG) Director Senior Supt. Rhodel Sermonia said the Oplan Tokhang had a negative reputation because it is being linked to extrajudicial killings. “Maybe we need the help of media to help us promote the ‘tokhang’ program,” Sermonia said. According to him, under Oplan Tokhang, more than a million drug personalities have surrendered and thousands of drug pushers “neutralized.”

“It means it is a manifestation that the program is good. That is why we need the media to propagate the message and make the public aware that the ‘Tokhang’ program is not negative,” Sermonia said. He admitted that the PNP has to educate its personnel to follow standard operational procedures.” Of course we will learn from the lapses committed by our policemen,” Sermonia said. The PNP, he said, is finding ways to change the negative view of Oplan Tokhang through community engagements by policemen in barangays.

Subcultures and Law Enforcement

Transactions involving uniformed police officers and citizens occur primarily between social roles rather than between individual human beings, although the human carriers of the roles do not escape the consequences of the interaction. This is an exaggerated way of making the point that while on duty, a police officer is rarely able to function solely as a person. As an officer’s role easily overwhelms his or her personal characteristics and identity as an individual human being. The positive side of role behavior provides a form of social efficiency useful in everyday life. It is a form of social shorthand which gives us functional role identifiers such as professors, physicians, accountants, attorneys, and in this case, police officers. The negative connotation provides the language of prejudice and can lead to stereotyping or believing that all labeled individuals share the same undesirable traits.

Citizen perceptions of the police role can vary, but lean toward the prejudiced. Sometimes, these perceptions result from personal experiences with the police, but more often they result from a generalized attitude of the community. In the large, pluralistic social system, community leads to subculture. Part of the population subscribes to and participates in the broad outlines of the social system, but the concepts, beliefs, habits, arts, apparels, dwellings, or institutions exhibit characteristic patterns which distinguish it from others. The subculture has the attribute of persistence, causing its own reproduction throughout generations.

In pluralistic societies, cultures have always presented an interesting challenge to the forces of social control. In a large community, there is generally a dominant or conventional set of values, customs, and artifacts which regulate how members behave and which establish the boundaries of appropriateness. Any smaller group within the community which differs markedly in behavior invites a decision by the larger group. The decision is whether social control will be predicated rigidly on the dominant cultural norms or on some other abstract standard. In simplistic terms, different behavior may be judged illegal and punishable, or it can merely be subject to disapproval. This dilemma is inherent in most societies and particularly in a large, open society. It has consumed much time, thought, and energy, and it is a basic element of the dualistic law-morality dilemma, because it is a recurring issue with endless permutations, working it out continues while the public goes on living and working and making judgments about how humans conduct with the guidelines generated this far in the continuous process.

Charged with the duty to maintain a minimum level of social order, police officers frequently confront the dilemma detailed above. They work in many different neighborhoods, including those which are not socially conventional. When changing values, customs, or public behaviors antagonize the more oriented residents of the community, the police are frequently called. Even disruptive social change like the loss of jobs due to technology appears easier to accept rather than changing standards of behavior. Police officers are often called to mediate disputes at the boundaries of subculture, and rehabilitate those in need.

When considered from the perspectives of social experience, the concepts of subcultural behavior can provide police officers a fresh and more accurate insight into their personal position in the total scheme of things. These concepts aid in making judgments which lead to fewer, rather than more, tensions and difficulties in handling their profession.

It becomes increasingly apparent, however, that the factors of personality, individual intentions and the conditions of meeting have less to do with the outcome of police and citizen relations than the cultural baggage of those involved. Individual factors are overpowered by cultural forces which thrust predetermined roles on both actors in the encounter. It must be emphasized that behavior in response to unconscious social forces is not inevitable. However, social perspectives operating below the level of consciousness are likely to produce spontaneous behavior unless they are brought to the surface of the mind, understood, and neutralized if undesirable. Several factors have combined to complicate the everyday experiences of police officers and city residents. Thus, rising expectations on roles put in the pressure to conform, and possibly dispute stereotypes.

CONCLUSION

Oplan Tokhang, which involves police force to legally knock and visit the residences of individuals who are suspected to be engaged in the illegal drug trade or as users, persuades said individuals to stop their activities and turn themselves in to the authorities for potential rehabilitation. During this knock on door operation, the officers of the law have a thorough examination and verification of the listed drug dependents. In the findings of this study, an individual who takes part in the Oplan Tokhang, or a ‘tokhanger’, risks his or her own reputation, and even his or her own life. Lived experiences and some commonalities have been expressed by the ‘tokhangers’, and these common themes are incorporated by the prejudices and biases of society that are withstood throughout their profession, the persistence held from the missed opportunities to succeed in operations as caused by the constant denial from the enlisted drug dependents, and subsequently, the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards they attain from the benefits of successfully going through the operation.

Oplan Tokhang has been working well in Bacolod City without having to resort to force. However, despite this, the police officers still receive an image from the public that they are violent, mainly caused by the negative reports displayed by the media. The seeking out of the perspective of police officers was necessary to open up a new and more positive side on the profession. The essence of role theory in particular gave a level of injustice to these police officers, as they constantly carry the assumptions given by society. The participants in this study have encountered the emotional baggage of being labeled as intimidating and even violent, simply by being enforcers of the law. It is unfair on their end to receive these negative images on them, even when they have not acted upon anything to be proven as such. The moment these people step into the job of being a member of the police, traits are automatically given, and it’s all from the stereotypical biases that have developed in the culture of engaging in roles. Thus, this study revealed the tendencies of behavior that take place when having to deal with the prematurely assumed images given by the society. For one, participants have shared the mindset, wherein they use the outlook on them as fuel to perform better, and have their actions of being an ideal police officer do the talking for them. They have also expressed how this is something that is choicelessly dealt with, and handling it is achieved by not handling it, since they believe that there is nothing they can possibly do to completely eradicate society’s negative image, proving that the phenomenon of role theory is present in the community, and thus is an inevitable challenge to face.

When encountering the fears that come along with the police profession, such as the unpredictability of environments and the general public, the participants in this study keep themselves composed with the knowledge that they come in groups. The feeling of being exposed to danger is lessened this way, along with the deep and detailed speculation of their surroundings prior to performing the operation.  The lived experiences of police officers who are involved in Oplan Tokhang is a great eye opener for individuals to realize the true purpose and present condition of the program. The opportunity for recovery through rehabilitation will be useful to society, as it allows a better perspective on the police to take place.

Additionally, this study could be used in the field of social psychology to better know the tendencies and coping mechanisms of police officers when dealing with the challenges faced in their profession. The variables that may affect their behavior, along with the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to police work are revealed as well in this study, allowing ideal methods to handle their situations on the job. Through the awareness and embracement of role theory under social psychology, police officers may be able to maximize their wellness in pursuing operations that fall under the police profession.

Recommendation

Police officers may familiarize themselves with the various protocols that ensure their uttermost safety during their operations, as well as the more efficient methods that allow their chances of success in Oplan Tokhang to increase. They should also be aware that their profession brings not only takes a physical toll, but an emotional one as well with the reputation they receive from the community’s assumption of their role. With that said, they should be aware of the coping mechanisms of other fellow police officers.

Family of police officers may know the impact they have on the well being of their police family member. They should understand as well that that the profession of being part of the force involves physically and emotionally draining tasks. Along these lines, the entire family ought to be dedicated, strong, supportive and understanding.

Family members of drug dependents may be educated with the true purpose of Oplan Tokhang, in order for them to be more open to cooperation with the police officers. It will understand the perspective of the authorities as well, as to why they find it necessary to comply with their work. More importantly, their willingness to abide by this operation provides an opportunity for the drug dependent to receive his or her road to rehabilitation as soon as possible.

Suspected Drug Personalities or traders may acquire knowledge on the intent of Oplan Tokhang. This is to take away the notion or fear of police officers, a fear of being put to prison or even physically harmed. Once that is achieved, they may voluntarily surrender themselves to the authorities for them to be placed with a chance to a better lifestyle, one that does not have them be involved with drugs.

General Media may often expose the good side of Oplan Tokhang. This will change the assumptions of members of the society, through the revealed benefits of this operation, because as of now, parts of the community still believe that it causes more harm than good with the reported articles. The promotion of the main goal of Oplan Tokhang will allow drug dependents to willingly turn their use of drugs.

This study will add to the existing literature about lived experiences of Police Officers who are assigned in conducting Oplan Tokhang. This will encourage the future researcher to conduct further study about the drug war not just in the Philippines but also in other countries. Other possible issues that can be tackled in regards to this topic are lived experiences of family members of police officers and drug war in the Philippines.

About the Author

I am Ivory Trinio Alvior, a first-year Juris Doctor student at the University of St. La Salle. Bacolod City, who want to pursue law and use my abilities to make important changes in the society we live in today. The research I conducted is in line with my interests in the psychological effects of things on individuals. I hope that this legal research will help future academics by answering some of their doubts about what lies underlying a person’s conduct in regard to his vocation and motivate others to respond to the call to action to change the Philippines.

References

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