 I'd like to start by declaring I have no conflict of interest to declare. I was just telling colleagues yesterday that I was born in the late 70s, a few years before the Marcos dictatorship was toppled through a people power revolution. So I grew up in a climate where Filipinos embraced democracy, where human rights, we were proud as a community, as a people of human rights, where we value human dignity. And that was my narrative about my country, about my nation for so long until Luteta came. It's still difficult to put words to the figures that you see on the screen. And this is coming from official government figures. From July 1, 2016 to May 30, 2018, the Philippine National Police told the Supreme Court that around 20,000 people have already been killed. 4,000 plus of which happened during legitimate police operations where drug suspects or accused drug criminals reportedly fought back or refused arrest. 16,355 of which are deaths under investigation, a term coined by the Philippine National Police and by the Philippine government to avoid using the term exorjudicial killings. They have conducted thousands of anti-drug operations, arrested thousands of individuals, and in their possession, at least of 1.3 million individuals who are forced to say they're either a drug pusher or a drug killer, creating a climate of fear in communities in the Philippines. It's important to note that the war on drugs is also a political weapon for the Luteta administration. Right now, Senator Dilema, who used to be the chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights that investigated exorjudicial killings linked to Luteta when he was still a mayor, is now in jail. Another senator, also a vocal opposition to the war on drugs and a champion of harm reduction, is facing a ridiculous anti-kinaping case from the government. The vice president was also expressed concerns over the human rights situation in the country, is constantly vilified by Luteta and his allies. The former head of the Supreme Court has been ousted, simply because she also stood up for human rights. There's been a spate of killings targeting local governments, local government officials and priests, which could demobilize opposition coming from other politicians and coming from the Catholic Church. While this is happening, the Philippines is facing one of the most explosive, if not the most explosive, HIV epidemic worldwide. The HIV prevalence remains low with a total of 54,000 cases, but a vast majority of which were recorded in the last five years. Most of these cases are among gay and bisexual men and trans women and among people who inject drugs who constitute 4% of the total HIV cases in the country. Despite these challenges, the government is investing more on the war on drugs. The national government would refuse to engage or talk about harm reduction or implementing a more public health approach towards the drugs issue. Public funding is also going to the war on drugs rather than other social services or for health. There's also a climate of stigma against civil society now. It's quite difficult to engage government officials to challenge or to engage their programs on health and they're very much suspicious of NGOs. Why is this happening? The Philippines is a weak democracy and its institutions and democratic norms have always been vulnerable to influence by vested interests. So it's important to note that this is also about dynamics among political clans, not based on a particular ideology supported by a particular political party. This is Duterte's personal paradigm. His formula to consolidate political power, his formula to survive in office. He's done this in his city in Davao and he's thinking that this is a viable option for him as a national political leader. There's hardly any clear vision or any clear government policy on the war on drugs and it's very difficult to identify what they want to do with those who have surrendered whether they have rehabilitation or treatment programs. The war on drugs has really emboldened impunity and attacks against democracy in the Philippines. There's an ongoing police campaign against loitering despite the fact that we have already decriminalized vagrancy that has affected gay men and sex workers in the country. There's an anti-smoking ban that's now being used to raid establishments. Attacks against independent media, a push to revise a constitution that potentially could give Duterte eight more years in power. How are communities resisting to these attacks? There are several initiatives happening on the ground to document human rights violations including the killings that's aligned with efforts to file a case or align to the efforts to submit cases to the International Criminal Court from which the Philippines has already withdrawn but which still has jurisdiction over violations that happened and will happen until March next year. There are community groups and NGOs doing their best despite challenges to resources, despite closing spaces, to deliver services to people who use drugs, to deliver ART, to PLHIVs in detention. There are also civil society organizations advocating for harm reduction, a relatively new NGO that has become a go-to institution training other civil society organizations, government officials on harm reduction just to change the perspective of the people on drugs. There's a local governance NGO that's been sensitizing local officials on harm reduction, a group of young lawyers sensitizing their own sector to push for drug policy reforms and several efforts to reach out to urban poor communities that are disproportionately affected by the war on drugs. There are many lessons to what's happening in the Philippines. The first of which, it shows the deplorable inadequacy of our business as usual approach in our HIV response, one where human rights is seen as a donor add-on or as a lip service and not as a core of what we do. The second is that we need more than ever inter-movement solidarity to build new grounds for collaboration between and among, say, urban poor communities affected by the war on drugs and HIV NGOs that understand that there's a better alternative to what's happening on the ground. And lastly, that we need to invest in communities, not just because they play a role in service delivery, but because communities drive change. They are our first responders and that's what we're seeing in the Philippines. And to be honest, in these dire times, there are also our reasons to hope. Thank you very much.