RENOWNED American marine biologist Dr. Kent Carpenter was brutally killed by intruders in his home in the late evening of July 12, 2026. Three men entered the house and, after shooting the 73-year-old Carpenter to death, took cash, a laptop, and other valuables. Carpenter’s female companion was sexually assaulted.
The murderer is a 26-year-old man from the same village in Sibulan, Negros Oriental, where Carpenter lived. The other perpetrators were locals, too. At least one of them had previously been employed by Carpenter in connection with a house renovation.
Three of the four suspects in police custody have tested positive for illegal drugs. This doesn’t mean they were high on drugs when they committed the crime, but it does remind us that drugs and violent crime often go hand in hand. Were the proceeds from the crime to be used to buy more drugs? Were the robbery, murder and rape manifestations of the depravity oftentimes associated with drug abuse? For sure, the fact that the three main suspects — the men who entered Carpenter’s home, shot him dead, raped his companion, and stole valuables — were positive for drugs confirms for many that drug addicts are violent criminals that society must deal with accordingly.
That brings me to the July 20 Kapihan sa SWS called “Why the Urban Poor Support Tokhang.” Marco Garrido, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, presented his — to some of us — unsettling findings. The urban poor took the brunt of Duterte-era war on drugs. The majority of the victims — of extrajudicial killings, as well as brutal police operations — were from urban poor communities. How could they possibly support the drug war?
People in communities such as the one in Tondo are not ignorant about what really happened. Garrido interviewed numerous individuals who had first-hand experience with drug operations and killings. They had to take cover from flying bullets. They had seen dead bodies. They had experienced killings inside their own homes, seen their children or neighbors killed. The war on drugs was anything but an abstract concept. It was real. It was violent and scary. People were traumatized.
But drug addiction is also a real problem in many of Metro Manila’s highly congested neighborhoods, Garrido reminds us. And for the poor, the professor explained, there is no room for error. The money you earn today is just enough to cover your daily expenses, such as your child’s fare to and from school, his “baon” (packed food), or a kilogram of rice. Every peso is meticulously accounted for. You must stay on track. Any form of “gulo” or disorder derails you from staying on track. Drug abuse is a major source of “gulo.” It is a real threat to security, personal safety and survival. It destroys not only the drug user but also families, relationships with neighbors, and the community itself.
Garrido found that these urban poor communities welcomed “tokhang.” No, they did not approve of the killings. Individuals involved in drugs should be placed in drug rehabilitation centers or jail, not killed. Drug users were given the chance to surrender and submit themselves to rehabilitation.
The result of “tokhang,” Garrido said, was that people felt safer. There were fewer crimes. Children stayed at home and didn’t get involved in drugs or other criminal activity. In short, families stayed on track. Garrido’s respondents in these urban poor neighborhoods in Manila want “tokhang” back, as the drug menace has returned.
The war on drugs, of course, never really ended. Data compiled by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled) shows significant numbers of both police drug operations and extrajudicial killings. Central Visayas and Davao “now hold the distinction of being major holdouts in the war on drugs during the Marcos Presidency,” Acled said in a statement on Feb. 20, 2026. “Central Visayas now leads in violent anti-drug vigilante activity, as well as in overall drug war violence, while [the] Davao Region leads in police drug-related violence against civilians.”
Former president Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, remain hugely popular in these two regions — and beyond, one may add. In his 2021 article “The Ground for the Illiberal Turn in the Philippines,” Garrido wrote that “although people may regard Duterte’s methods as questionable or unsavory, they see him as effective.” It sums up the sentiments of Garrido’s urban poor about "tokhang." Unlike some diehard supporters of the Dutertes, they didn’t approve of the killings and the violent raids. However, they felt that the net effect of the campaign was improved security in the community, helping families “stay on track.”
Other, deeper problems remained then and now, affecting not only the poor: rising cost of living, lack of access to quality education, inadequate health care, and lack of opportunities to attain a better quality of life. Absent meaningful progress on these fronts, the least we expect from the government is to keep our neighborhoods safe from criminal elements.
