Pampagilas: Methamphetamine in the everyday economic lives of underclass male youths in a Philippine port

Highlights

• This ‘focused ethnography’ looked at drug use in the everyday lives of urban poor male youths in a Philippine port community.

• Drugs, particularly methamphetamine, were found to play roles in the social and economic lives of urban poor male youths.

• Methamphetamine gives stamina, strength, disinhibition, and more, helping the young people do their various jobs in an informal economy.

• The embededness of drug use in the economy calls for an economic solution in the campaign to reduce drug use among young people.

Abstract

Background

Amid growing concerns about methamphetamine use in Southeast Asia, one important lesson from the field is that the drug serves various ‘functions’ for its users. The current study explores the functions of methamphetamine (locally known as shabu) in the economic and social lives of a community of underclass young men in a Philippine port.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 20 young men (aged 18–25), most of whom worked as street vendors. Participant observation was carried out for 12 months.

Findings

Methamphetamine use led these young men to experience various desirable effects: increased strength and confidence, disinhibition, insomnia, and an overall improvement of mood that facilitates performance at work and social bonding in their peer group. Methamphetamine, in short, is seen as a ‘performance enhancer’ (pampagilas). While young people were aware of the legal, economic, and physiologic risks of using methamphetamine, these risks were outweighed by the perceived benefits in the context of an informal economy where opportunities are limited.

Conclusion

Drug policies and programs in the Philippines must acknowledge the economic and social role of methamphetamine in the daily lives of young men. This group need skills training and opportunities to move out of an informal economy that generates the demand for drugs to enhance performance – necessary in an arena where performance means survival.

Introduction

Pampagilas is a Tagalog word that means ‘enhancer of skills’ or ‘performance enhancer’. This is how my underclass young male informants in a Philippine port community viewed methamphetamine (locally known as shabu). Caught in an informal economy that requires them to perform in order to survive, drug use plays a crucial role in their lives – a predicament shared by many young marginalized people around the world.

Drawing on interviews and first-hand observation, this article describes and analyses the ‘street-level’ lives of young people and the economics of their drug use. Although my main focus is on methamphetamine, I also include in my analysis, albeit somewhat peripherally, other substances such as cannabis, tobacco and alcohol. Taken together these drugs, and the activities that surround their use, constitute a ‘risk’ or ‘enabling environment’ (Duff, 2009, Rhodes, 2002).

Southeast Asian drug policy-makers are concerned about the growing use and illicit manufacture of amphetamines, particularly methamphetamine (Kulsudjarit, 2004, McKetin et al., 2008, UNODC, 2010), which has become the drug of choice in many countries. In the Philippines, it comes in the form of crystal methamphetamine (DDB, 2008, PDEA, 2009). Many (mainly cross-sectional) epidemiological studies have described substance use patterns in the region, including demographic correlates and other individual risk factors such as engaging in sex work and violent behaviour (Russell et al., 2008, UNODC, 2010). Nevertheless, these studies rarely focus on the daily lives of young drug users or the social contexts in which substance use occurs. Rare exceptions include Nasir and Rosenthal's study (2009) of drug use in a slum area in Makassar, Indonesia, and Sherman et al.’s study (2008) of methamphetamine initiation among Thai youths. The latter study, which explores the social and economic functions of methamphetamine, concludes that ‘[d]epending on individuals’ specific situations or needs, the drug was seen as a panacea for physical and emotional deficits, including needing energy, dealing with intense emotions, or needing to lose weight.’

These works resonate with recent scholarship on drug use among young people which recognizes their agency in making decisions to use (or not use) drugs. Young people weigh the risks and benefits of drug use (Hunt, Evans, & Kares, 2007: 73) and evaluate the ‘functions’ of various drugs in their everyday lives. Drugs may help enhance their concentration, stamina or moods (Boys, Marsen, & Strang, 2001) or help them negotiate the structural constraints in their lives (Pilkington, 2007: 223). The autonomy they gain through drug use, however, is neither infallible nor boundless. As Fast et al. point out in their study of street-involved young people in Canada, ‘willing players’ can move towards ‘circumstances where autonomy is severely limited’ (Fast, Small, Wood, & Kerr, 2009: 1208).

Though much of the recent literature moves away from notions of drug use as a pathology or a social and moral ‘evil’, such notions continue to inform how drugs are viewed in many countries, including the Philippines (see Vidal, 1998: 1–25). The dearth of ethnographic studies on drug use among young people in resource-poor settings further underscores the importance of understanding drug use at the level of lived experience, particularly in the Philippines and Southeast Asia where very little ethnographic work has been done on young drug users.