DILIMAN, Quezon City — Citing a new report on alleged abuses in the Marcos Jr.’s administration’s campaign against illegal drugs, global rights group Amnesty International (AI) has slammed the Philippine government for allegedly detaining thousands of people in so-called drug treatment and rehabilitation centers where they are held against their will and subjected to human rights violations.

The report, entitled ‘Submit and Surrender: The Harms of Arbitrary Drug Detention in the Philippines and released last November 28 (the current year), featured documents on how people who use drugs are being sent to government-run facilities where they are forced to go through programs that are not evidence-based.

It described that people in ‘rehabilitation’ are punished for using drugs and coerced into abstinence, forced to undergo mandatory drug testing in violation of their right to privacy and subjected to severe punishments for rule violations, including weeks or months in isolation.

“Drug detention centers are disguised as facilities offering treatment and rehabilitation. In reality, they are places of arbitrary detention where people suffer serious human rights violations that continue even after their release,” AI campaigner Jerrie Avella alleged.

The report comes amid renewed scrutiny of violations committed during the term of former president Rodrigo Duterte who initiated a blood campaign against the illegal drug trade that saw the murder of thousands victims in hundreds of police operations that were rewarded with cash for every drug personality killed.

“While lawmakers rightly examine the role of President Duterte and others in suspected crimes against humanity, these ongoing and largely hidden violations taking place within drug detention centers must also be urgently addressed,” Abella cited.

“The administration of President Marcos Jr. pledged a new approach to the country’s drug problem focused on public health and human rights. Instead, people who use drugs continue to be criminalized and stigmatized through punitive policies and practices despite the end of the Duterte era,” he added.