 We know from the news that in the Philippines the government launched a war on drugs. Actually that's a war on drug users and the Philippines government is now accused by many other governments and international bodies such as the UN Odyssey as supporting ex-judicier killing of people. Can you explain us like where this whole idea of the war on drugs is coming from? How this whole war on drugs evolved or developed in the Philippines? When Mr. Duterte got elected in 2016 he unleashed upon the Filipino nation this war on drugs as he called it. And based on the last report of the government they have now killed more than 20,000 Filipinos and they categorized it into two. One is those deaths resulting from police operations. And another 16,000 died or killed by unknown assailants but the problem is the Duterte administration reported it as an accomplishment of their administration officially so they are crediting themselves with 20,000 deaths. And these people who were killed didn't go any due process or they didn't have their day in court. They were just arbitrarily listed in some sheet of paper by the community officials and this list is the one being used by the policemen to hunt down these people. And in so many cases these people are not even the ones listed because there are also reports that there is a bounty for every person killed there is around $200 worth of bounty that goes to the policeman who gets to kill a Filipino. So this is a messed up system of addressing the problem of illegal drugs. Now here's the thing. The son of Mr. Duterte is himself implicated in a large shipment of meth that went unpunished by Mr. Duterte. In fact he exonerated the different officials linked with his son and that's why all of these tons of illegal drugs are coming in and without being made to account for their actions. And just a few days ago the known drug lords of the Philippines who are close friends with Mr. Duterte have been exonerated by the Department of Justice. So I label this war on drugs by Duterte as fake. This is just a means for him to control the different segments of society and that's really to address illegal drugs and even so this approach has been proven to have failed in other countries who have tried to employ them. Do you think that the Filipino people or the majority of the Filipino people support this war on drugs or is it just fear which is behind? Okay. The war on illegal drugs per se is perceived as a collective effort by the Filipino people to treat the illegal drug problem as a serious problem. So everybody's on board that policy but what they disagree with is the method of Mr. Duterte of killing suspected drug users and drug pushers because all of us believe that it's not the right approach. It's very inhumane and it has proven to be not effective at all as experienced by other countries. And we also believe that these drug users should be able to be rehabilitated and given a chance to be reintegrated in the mainstream of society. You know that the Philippines is a Catholic country. Yes. So what was the church place in this? The Catholic church in the Philippines has been very active in promoting human rights and denouncing the extrajudicial killings. They have also been a sanctuary of the victims, families, and some of the witnesses. And even those who are part of the death squads of Mr. Duterte. So I believe they are doing their part. It may be muted comparatively but everybody's doing their part. Is it dangerous to be an opposition politician now in the Philippines? So is your own personal safety in danger? It's very dangerous right now to be part of the political opposition. One colleague of mine, Senator Dilema, has been imprisoned arbitrarily because of trumped up charges, totally fabricated. But with her detention, it sent a chilling message to all the other politicians not to cross with Mr. Duterte. As for myself, we have a witness who told us that they were actually ordered by Mr. Duterte to have me killed. And I am also facing several cases that they trumped up just to put me away. But for as long as I'm standing and I'm able to speak out, I would speak out and tell the whole world about the plight of the Filipino people. What can the world do? What can the international community do to help the Filipino people? The international community has been a very big help in putting pressure on the Duterte administration to respect human rights and due process and the rule of law. And that somehow slowed down the killing machine of Duterte. So we are appealing still to the international community to continue to help us with our situation in the Philippines and just keep on putting the pressure on Mr. Duterte. How do you see the future? Do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Definitely. We have seen it before. Tyrants like Duterte have fallen much stronger, tyrants like him. But they suffered ignominious ends and we feel Duterte would suffer the same fate. And besides, he's not necessarily a young man. So there is a finite length of time that he would be in power. How would the ideal drug policy look like, which you would prefer that would be optimal for the Philippines? We would have preferred the more holistic approach in addressing the illegal drug problem, addressing the demand side, for example, through harm reduction and rehabilitation and a massive indoctrination for the youth, those particularly who have yet to touch illegal drugs should be informed about the negative effects on their bodies and on their futures. But for the supply side, we need a stronger information exchange with other nations, tighter border controls so that we can stop the proliferation of the drugs in our country. So these are some of the ideas that we have in mind. Thank you very much Senator for talking to us and I wish you luck for your work. Thank you very much Peter.