•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte launched the drug war in 2016 to address alleged rising criminality. His directive to kill those who resisted arrest became a symbolic articulation of a policy that led to the deaths of alleged drug offenders, particularly among marginalized urban poor communities. While the drug war has been extensively examined in relation to public policy and governance, few studies have approached it through the lens of communication, particularly crisis communication. Using the culture-centered approach (CCA) as its theoretical anchor, this paper investigated how human rights non-government organizations (NGOs) as meso-structural actors made sense of Duterte’s “war on drugs” as a human rights and communicative crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twelve representatives from local and international human rights organizations, the study examined how NGO actors interpreted the drug war through engagements with urban poor communities, documentation efforts, field investigations, and advocacy work. Findings indicate that NGO representatives understood the drug war as a state-enabled system marked by violations of the right to life and due process, police impunity, and irregularities in law enforcement operations. Their sensemaking highlighted the widespread use of the “nanlaban” narrative to justify killings, alleged profiteering mechanisms, and the structural vulnerabilities that made poor communities convenient targets of the drug war. NGO representatives further rejected the dominant criminal justice orientation of the drug war and advanced an alternative framework to address the drug problem. These sensemaking processes contribute to crisis communication scholarship by foregrounding the communicative role of NGOs in contesting dominant meanings of violence, legitimacy, and social justice.

Download

Share

COinS