‘Tokhang reflects current reality in Philippine society’

MANILA, Philippines — The word “tokhang” may have been coined to convey a positive initiative to combat the problem on illegal drugs. 

But the writer who proposed it in this year’s competition for “word of the year” believes that the way most Filipinos use it would reflect how the term came to mean something else.

Speaking with “The Chiefs” aired on Cignal TV’s One News last Wednesday, writer Mark Angeles said “tokhang” – which bested 10 other words as the Filipino word of the year for 2018 – has evolved into having a more sinister meaning.

Instead of simply being the codename of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs, Angeles noted that “tokhang” also means death during an anti-illegal drug operation.

“We know that it is the campaign of the government,” he said in Filipino. “But we also know that the other side of it is bloody.”

Angeles said he has heard the word uttered many times in public, especially in their neighborhood in Caloocan, which has been dubbed as the ground zero of the deadly campaign against illegal drugs.

“I hear the word ‘tokhang’ from my neighbors. When I am in the market, when I buy food I would hear ‘natokhang si ganito’,” he said, noting that the word was used not just to refer to the drug war but to the death of someone because of it.

“Tokhang” originated from the program “Toktok Hangyo sa Kabalayan sa mga Suspected Drug Pusher,” which was initiated by then Davao City police chief Ronald dela Rosa in 2012.

It was adopted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) in 2016 when Dela Rosa was appointed as its chief by President Duterte, who made the problem of illegal drugs the centerpiece of his successful presidential campaign.

But rather than just knocking on the doors of suspected drug pushers, Oplan Tokhang became something else as thousands died in the anti-drug operations supposedly because they fought back. – With Ghio Ong