The SWS survey shows that despite the fact that majority of Filipinos are worried of becoming an EJK victim, many remain loyal to President Duterte and his anti-drug war
The latest results of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that seventy-eight of Filipinos are fearful that they might be the next victim of extrajudicial killings (EJK) as the government-led battle against illegal drugs continues.
But the same poll, whose result was released on December 19, Monday, shows that a majority remains supportive of the campaign.
The SWS survey found that about eight of every ten Filipinos worry that they or someone they know might be the next victim of EJK.
Nearly eight of every ten Filipinos fret that they or somebody familiar to them would end up a victim of one of the killings as President Rodrigo Duterte seeks to clear the society from the evils of illegal drugs.
But despite of this, the survey result revealed that a majority of the Filipinos still gave the President’s campaign an “excellent” rating.
Since President Duterte took office on July 1, there have been more than two thousand people killed by police in anti-illegal drugs operations and another 3,171 deaths were attributed to men in mask, riding on motorcycles or vigilantes.
The killings are still under investigation by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and its line agencies.
A total of 41, 682 were arrested during legitimate police operations from July 1 to December 19.
Meanwhile, ninety-four of the survey respondents said it was important that the drug suspects arrested in police operations were kept alive, supposedly to expose more information.
The non-commissioned survey was done nationwide on December 3 to 6 among 1,500 adults with a margin of error of plus-or-minus three percentage points.
It found that indecision was the common sentiment among the respondents.
But despite the fears that they will be the next EJK victim, the SWS survey showed that Filipinos staunchly stand behind Duterte’s war against prohibited narcotics, a campaign that has drawn international concern and a request from a United Nations (UN) human rights expert to come over and conduct an investigation.
The war against drugs received an excellent +77 net satisfaction mark, a rating determined by deducting the 8 percent of respondents who said they were not satisfied from the 85 percent who were satisfied.
According to Institute for Political and Electoral Reform executive director Ramon Casiple, he is not surprised with the result of the study, interpreting it as people’s acknowledgment that the anti-drug campaign is only fitting to the demands of the society.
Be he said the respondents’ expression of apprehensions show that they would like less killings.