We’ve always known this to be true: a majority of those dead in the drug war, whether in the hands of police or in summary executions, are poor; a small percentage that might be seen as “big fish,” are “rubbed out” in the way that a violent President’s orders have implicitly allowed and encouraged; and there is a select group of people who can get away with pretty much anything, drug-related and otherwise, as long as they are well-connected to Duterte and his men.
This is what’s called the Duterte double-standard. And this creates the select group of people who might be labeled as Duterte sacred cows.
The ones who can smuggle in P6.4 BILLION PESOS of illegal drugs and get away with it. The ones who can be pinpointed as drug lord, but get an audience with the President to declare his innocence. The ones who refuse to even prove their innocence because their father is the President of the Philippines.