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MANILA, Philippines – An international survey said the Philippines is one of the safest countries in the world, as its citizens feel safe and trust the police.
Local rights groups, however, found the results ironic, considering the police’s questionable record under the Duterte government’s drug war.
According to the Washington-based Gallup Global Law and Order 2020 Index, the Philippines ranked 12th out of 144 countries surveyed in 2019. It was tied with Australia, New Zealand, Poland and Serbia at 84 percent.
Singapore and Turkmenistan topped the public order index with 97 percent, followed by China (93 percent), Iceland and Kuwait (93 percent). War-torn Afghanistan ranked last with 43 percent.
7 out of 10 feel safe
Overall, the study said that nearly seven out of 10 people around the world said they felt safe and trusted local police.
“In most economically developed countries with a strong rule of law, most residents say that they feel safe walking in their areas alone at night. This answer is almost universal in Singapore and exceeds 80 percent in many Western European countries. The same is true for the countries most controlled by the state, ”he noted.
As in previous years, people in Latin America and the Caribbean were “less likely” to feel safe in their communities, Gallup noted. Southeast Asia also ranked slightly above the United States and Canada.
According to the study, the index “provides a baseline of how the world will respond to challenges that have emerged during subsequent crises, including those related to law enforcement in the US and elsewhere.”
It is not surprising
For local human rights groups, however, the results were not surprising given the prevalence of law enforcement officers in communities since the beginning of the war on drugs.
Human Rights Watch lead Filipino researcher Carlos Conde said the survey was in no way “an endorsement” of the way the police conducted the war on drugs nor could it be construed as an exoneration of their abuses since 2016.
“When you have high visibility and police presence, of course people will feel safe. This is also consistent with the police statistics that the crime rate has been going down, ”Conde said in a message to the Inquirer.
But the study “does not deny the fact that police conduct during the ‘war on drugs’ has been abusive, resulting in the deaths of thousands since 2016 and virtually no accountability. Further, [most] of the victims of the ‘war on drugs’ had been thoroughly demonized and thus the general public [have] no sympathy for them, “he added.
Needs context
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay expressed the same sentiment, saying that any framework in collecting public responses to such questions “should always integrate the rights-based approach and framework to provide a more holistic analysis on such responses.” .
“In countries like the Philippines, [confidence] in law enforcement to address crime and security issues is not a simple yes or no question, especially if the indicators are not placed in context, ”he noted, adding that the survey should have included the complexities of police presence and impunity among its indicators.
“Narratives devoid of such frameworks can unknowingly be used to justify human rights violations in the name of ‘security’,” he said.
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