Confronting the Philippines' war on drugs: a literature review

Upon election in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte launched one of the world's most lethal and aggressive anti-drug campaigns known as the War on Drugs in the Philippines. The War on Drugs unleashed an unprecedented level of violence while enjoying high public approval in the Philippines throughout Duterte's presidency. Scholars from a variety of disciplines grappled with understanding the significance and impact of the War on Drugs, generating a substantial literature. How have scholars contributed to critical understanding and practice that confront the Philippines' War on Drugs? We analyse and assess the state of the scholarship on the Philippines' War on Drugs by reviewing 140 scholarly materials. We find that scholars contextualized the popularity of violence, documented its various actual effects on Philippine society, and to a lesser extent, offered alternatives. Our literature review synthesises two major analytical approaches explaining the drug war: as penal populism and as moral politics. Scholars describe the War on Drugs as a way of governing society through violence and with impunity for extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses, using legitimising moral discourses. We present key findings on the drug war's actual consequences, underscoring its catastrophic impact across various communities except the drug trade itself. Throughout, we offer reflections on blind spots, highlighting the value of considering the historical context and deeper structural and political-economic drivers. We arrive at a research agenda intended to aid scholars in engaging with the persistent issues in the War on Drugs as it continues to be implemented by the Philippine government.