Chapter I

Immediately after starting his regime, Philippine president Rodrigo R. Duterte had

focused a lot of his political power to eradicate the problem of illegal drugs in the country. He allocated

millions of Philippine pesos in the effort to ensure that drug cartels in the country are stopped. But

aside from stopping the provider of these illegal drugs, he also found a creative way to make sure that

the users also cease the usage of these addictive substances through the proposed project called

OPLAN TOKHANG.

But to understand better what is the reason why this was stated in the beginning of this

research paper, one must first learn more about the law itself, starting with the origin of its name.

The word Tokhang comes from the combination of two Visayan words which is toktok

and hangyu, which in English both respectively means to knock and to ask. The term became

popular when the Philippine government released a command memorandum to the public which stated

that in order to stop the drug problem in the country, especially in small barangays that were Drug

Affected, which means that a drug user lived within the community, the police were given the

command to go door to door to the residences that were reported to house a drug user or drug pusher,

which is the term used to those who sell these drugs. During these visitations, the drug personality in

question is asked to willingly surrender then and there by the visiting authorities and would be admitted

to near rehab facilities to start their treatment for the usage of these illegal substances. Those who

refuse to surrender or deny the allegations are taken into custody to wait for further investigations and

to be tried in court. This fact about the project alone gave everyone no choice but to choose the first

condition.

So the questions now that this research aims to address is whether this way of seeking

out these substance abusers would aid in the success of the president's plans or would it just be a failure

in the waiting since most of these individuals are immediately viewed as addicts by society thanks to
how they were publicly asked of their surrender. Would the negative views of society affect how they

perceive themselves and then in turn would these negative perception of themselves aid them in getting

over their addiction? Or would it simply worsen it especially after their rehab program ends? Would

their remission be a success or would they go back to using because they already believe that there is

no point to changing since the world already see them as users? Do the self-concept of tokhang

surrenderees affect how they would get over their addiction?

These are the questions that the proponents for this study aim to discover in this

research, and they will do so by finding out how these surrenderees perceive themselves as tokhang

surrenderees and then try to relate their findings on whether their data would correlate to the success or

failure of their remission after they finish their rehab.

But before going further into the study, one must first understand the importance of the

self-concept and how it can help in the future actions and thinking of individuals.

The term self-concept has been used in psychology for quite some time, but many still

think that self-concept is the same as the self, when in fact there is a distinction between the two.

According to Viktor Gecas (1982), the self is a reflexive phenomenon that develops in social

interaction and is based on the social character of human language. Meaning the term self is used to

describe the individual as a whole. Self-concept, on the other hand, is the product of this reflexive

activity (Gecas, 1982). It is the concept or belief an individual has about himself or herself, this

includes their attributes and who and what they believe their selves are to be (Baumeister, 1999).

This interaction itself is one of the key things that actually plays a big role in the

creation of the self-concept, because according to Carl Rogers (1959) environment plays a big role in

its development. This is so in his belief that there are three components of the self-concept. And these

are the self image, the self-esteem or self worth and the ideal self.

Now to explain each components and relate them to the tokhang surrenderees so one can

finally understand the purpose of this study.

 The self image, according to Rogers (1959), is the view of the individual towards

himself or herself. But note that this view of the self is not relative to what is in reality and how the

individual perceives themselves with their senses (e.g. physical appearance and intelligence). Self

image is influence by environmental factors like the opinions of parents and friends, norms of society

and even the media. These influences then give the individual basis for how to describe themselves.

Using the tokhang surrenderees as an example, a surrenderee may physically perceive themselves as

ordinary law abiding citizens, but due to the constant and popular belief that the usage of these

addictive drugs is bad, then they would in turn see themselves as bad or evil individuals for doing

something that others perceive as not good. These individuals would have a negative self image of

themselves all because others view them in a negative light.

Following self image in Roger's (1959) components of self-concept comes what is called

the self-esteem or the self-worth. Self esteem is the measure of which an individual values himself or

herself. It is also a measure of how much an individual believes he or she is valuable to others (Rogers,

1959.

Of course this idea is not set unless one takes in to consideration the third component of

self-concept, which is the ideal self.

The ideal self is the self of which the individual desires to be (Rogers, 1959). Rogers

believed that when there is a congruency between the ideal and the self-image, then the individual

becomes self-actualized. And with self-actualization comes heightened awareness. When an individual

is aware of his or her actions then he or she is able to take responsibility and accept the consequences

of these said actions. Putting this into concept of the tokhang surrenderees, when these individuals who

see themselves as drug addicts and their ideal self is not, they would find it hard to make a decision to

change because they are still denying parts of themselves. But if these individuals have a congruent self

image and ideal self, then they are aware about themselves, and with this awareness, they now have the

responsibility and the choice to continue being a drug addict or not, unlike when there was an in
congruency about themselves where they shun part a part of who they are and end up putting the blame

of their addiction to others instead of owning their addiction.

The researchers assume that the self- concept of the tokhang surrenderees is positively

correlated with their ability to fulfill the rehabilitation.s