A House lawmaker filed a bill, dubbed the “Kian Bill,” that intends to base the country’s drug policy on human rights and public health as opposed to the law-enforcement approach during the drug war of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

House Bill 11004 or the proposed Public Health Approach to Drug Use Act of 2024 was filed on November 4, named after Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old student gunned down by the police in 2017 despite officials eventually admitting that he was not even included in their drug watch list.

The proposed bill aims to reorient the country’s drug policy through a humane and health-based perspective, as told in an interview by Akbayan Partylist Rep. Percival Cendaña, author of the bill.

“Drug use is a medical issue. What we want to do is to reorient how we address the drug issue in our country towards a more rights-based and public health approach,” Cendaña said.

Accountability For Drug War Violence

Delos Santos was just a senior high school student when police officers in civilian clothing dragged him into an alley, despite his protests that he still had an exam the following day. A witness account revealed that officers forced him to run with a gun before shooting him.

Police admitted that delos Santos was not included in their drug watch list, but that he was pointed out by a drug dealer on the list.

Delos Santos died before even reaching legal age. But he was only one of at least 122 children killed during the drug war.

Other teenage victims were Carl Arnaiz and Reynaldo De Guzman, whose bodies were found gunned down and stabbed around the date of delos Santos’s murder. Arnaiz, who was with De Guzman, was claimed by the police to have robbed a taxi driver with packets of drugs retrieved from his pocket and backpack—this was eventually proven to be untrue.

The police officers who killed delos Santos were convicted of murder, while those who killed Arnaiz and De Guzman were found guilty of torture and planting evidence. 

But these convictions are among the rare instances of police prosecutions for their involvement in the drug war. Since the start of the war on drugs, only eight police officers have been convicted.

“Hindi na pwedeng madagdagan pa yang mga pangalan nina Kian, nina Carl at Kulot (Reynaldo de Guzman). This bill, other than being the Kian Bill, is the End Tokhang Bill,” Cendaña established his reason for authoring the bill.

The Kian Bill would prohibit the use of drug lists—which contain suspected drug personalities compiled by law enforcement officials—corporal punishment, involuntary treatment, compulsory detention, and torture, among others. A public officer who is found guilty of committing any of the prohibited acts will either be suspended for six to 12 months or permanently removed from office, as stated in the copy of the bill obtained by the Collegian.

This would directly contradict the violent nature of Duterte's war on drugs which, as it has been admitted by the former president himself in the ongoing Senate hearings, was a process that encouraged suspects to “fight back” to justify lethal police retaliation.

In his last year in post in 2021, the Commission on Human Rights estimated more than 27,000 deaths by Duterte’s war on drugs. Only 76 deaths led to investigations.

Congress is currently investigating Duterte’s drug war, with a former police colonel confirming the implementation of a reward system for officers who were able to kill targeted suspects.

Health-Based Approach

Despite the long list of deaths, the drug war did not solve the country’s drug problem and its law-enforcement approach proved to be ineffective, Cendaña said.

But drug addiction is actually recognized as a health issue in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s report. In fact, over 40 million people worldwide suffered from Substance Use Disorder in 2021, though only one in five had access to effective treatment.

With the goal of incorporating the health dimension to the country's drug policy, the Kian Bill mandates the Department of Health, in collaboration with local government units, to conduct strategies such as peer support and mentorship programs, referral to health and social services, and integrative psychotherapy, where individual counseling could be provided to people who use drugs.

The proposed law also requires health personnel to disclose the effects of medications and treatment to “people whose lives include drugs” and prohibits the denial of health services to such individuals. Any health personnel who is guilty of committing the prohibited acts would receive a suspension of six to nine months or the revocation of their medical license.

“This bill is one of the necessary conclusions of the [hearings on drug war] that have happened. We saw how [the drug war] is vulnerable to abuse by those in power. This is one of the necessary actions that is the product of those processes,” Cendaña said. ●