Ana P. Santo's article on Pulitzer Center "Teen 'Widows' of Duterte's Drug War Face a Bleak Economic Future" quoted Eleanore Ordillos: '“I just want her to finish school so she can find a job. Any job will do. I don’t have big ambitious dreams for my children." Ordillos is the mother of teen mom Mishel, who has just been "widowed" by her teen boyfriend due to Duterte's war on drugs. To me, it seems as though these people being impacted by the drug war, increasing teen pregnancy rates, and difficulty finding work have lost all hope. To hear a mother not have big dreams for her child is something that doesn't ring right in my ears. They just see no hope.
In America a war on drugs is hoped to kill less people; to decrease the amount of drug-related deaths. In the Philippines, a drug war means fearing your government and more people dying from the war itself and less the drugs. And, from what I read, the drug users aren't partaking recreationally, but in order to stay awake working as fisherman and other long-hour jobs. Of course this does not make it any more acceptable, however it's just another sad truth of the poor conditions they're in.
Not only are Filipino teens increasingly being robbed of their childhood as lack of education and birth control leads to 500 babies being born a day to teens, but then they are robbed of their loves, their co-parents, their source of income. And now their mothers, the people who are supposed to want nothing but the best for them, just want them to get by with the bare minimum. This is something that strikes me as very, very wrong.