(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
“License to Kill” [1]
['Peter Bouckaert', 'Rodrigo Duterte', 'September', 'August', 'May', 'June', 'November', 'April', 'December', 'January']
Date: 2017-03-02
Summary
On the afternoon of October 14, 2016, four masked gunmen stormed the Manila home of Paquito Mejos, a 53-year-old father of five who worked as an electrician on construction sites. An occasional user of shabu, a methamphetamine, Mejos had turned himself in to local authorities two days earlier after learning he was on a “watch list” of drug suspects. The gunmen asked for Mejos, who was napping upstairs. “When I saw them with their handguns going upstairs,” a relative said, “I told them, ‘But he has already surrendered to the authorities!’ They told me to shut up, or I would be next.”
Two gunshots rang out. Police investigators arrived moments later and were assisted by the gunmen. In their report, the police referred to Mejos as “a suspected drug pusher” who “pointed his gun [at the police] but the police officers were able to shoot him first hitting him on the body causing his instantaneous death.” They said a shabu packet was found along with a handgun. “But Paquito never had a gun,” said his relative. “And he did not have any shabu that day.”
Since the inauguration of President Rodrigo Duterte on June 30, 2016, and his call for a “war on drugs,” Philippine National Police officers and unidentified “vigilantes” have killed over 7,000 people. The anti-drug campaign dubbed “Operation Double Barrel” has targeted suspected drug dealers and users ostensibly for arrest but in practice has been a campaign of extrajudicial execution in impoverished areas of Manila and other urban areas. Duterte’s outspoken endorsement of the campaign implicates him and other senior officials in possible incitement to violence, instigation of murder, and in command responsibility for crimes against humanity.
Play Video
Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them. If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have (me). ― Rodrigo Duterte, September 30, 2016
This report examines 24 incidents, resulting in 32 deaths, involving Philippine National Police personnel between October 2016 and January 2017. Human Rights Watch found that the official police reports of these incidents invariably asserted self-defense to justify police killings, contrary to eyewitness accounts that portray the killings as cold-blooded murders of unarmed drug suspects in custody. To bolster their claims, the police routinely planted guns, spent ammunition, and drug packets next to the victims’ bodies. No one has been meaningfully investigated, let alone prosecuted, for these killings.
Before being elected president, Rodrigo Duterte was the mayor of Davao City for more than two decades. There, the “Davao Death Squad” had killed hundreds of drug users, street children, and other petty criminals. While denying involvement in the death squads, Duterte endorsed their killings as an effective way to combat crime, relishing his “Duterte Harry” nickname and reputation.
Police personnel at a crime scene after unidentified gunmen on motorcycles fatally shot Edgardo Santos in the head at about 4:30 p.m. in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, November 11, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch People who voluntarily surrendered during Operation Double Barrel Tokhang sign an affidavit admitting that they've used drugs and that they will cooperate with the authorities in their anti-drug campaign, July 27, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch Jayson Asuncion, 37, surrendered to police after admitting his use of shabu, or methamphetamine, for several years, September 15, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch The body of a suspected drug dealer killed after an alleged shootout with police in Caloocan, Metro Manila, September 9, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch A family picture with the coffin of 5-year old Danica Mae Garcia after a pre-burial mass. An unidentified gunman targeting Garcia’s grandfather, Maximo Garcia, killed her while the family sat down to lunch at their home in Dagupan City, Pangasinan. The attack came just three days after Maximo Garcia had registered with local police in response to their suspicions of his involvement in the drug trade. August 31, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch Detainees in Police Station 6 in Santa Ana, Manila, July 27, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch A small sachet of shabu, a form of methamphetamine, is found wrapped in a 500 peso bill found in Jayson Reuyan's pocket after he was killed in Five masked armed men broke into a house in Bulacan an alleged drug buy-bust operation by the police, January 13, 2017. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch The body of Edwin Mendoza lies covered with cardboard boxes after he was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in front of a convenience store on Airport Road, Paranaque, Metro Manila. A sachet of shabu was allegedly found at the crime scene, October 18, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch The body of an unidentified man with face wrapped in packaging tape and hands tied found dumped in a narrow street in Pasay, Metro Manila, November 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch Bodies of unclaimed drug campaign victims lie beneath graves at a Manila cemetery, January 24, 2017. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch A tally board of the number of admitted drug users and dealers who surrendered in Operation Tokhang hangs inside the police station in Pasig, Metro Manila, September 17, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch A wreath sent by the Presidential Palace for the September 25, 2016 funeral of police officer Romeo Mandapat Jr, who was killed during a drug bust operation in Caloocan, Metro Manila. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch Police crime scene investigators under Jones Bridge in Binondo, Manila after police shot dead suspected drug dealers Cyril Raymundo, Eduardo Aquino and Edgar Cumbis in a “buy-bust” operation. December 5, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
Even prior to announcing his candidacy for the May 2016 presidential election, Duterte was already very clear about his intention to eliminate crime by eliminating criminals: “If by chance that God will place me there, watch out because the 1,000 [people allegedly executed while Duterte was mayor of Davao City] will become 100,000. You will see the fish in Manila Bay getting fat. That is where I will dump you.”
Duterte’s outspoken vow to embark on a nationwide killing campaign against drug dealers and drug users was the foundation of his presidential electoral platform. During a campaign rally on March 15, 2016, for example, he stated: “When I become president, I will order the police to find those people [dealing or using drugs] and kill them. The funeral parlors will be packed.”
Play Video
Following his election, Duterte continued to state unequivocally that his anti-drug campaign would focus on killing drug dealers and users. Speaking in Davao City on June 4, he stated: “If you are still into drugs, I am going to kill you. Don’t take this as a joke. I’m not trying to make you laugh. Sons of bitches, I’ll really kill you.”
Play Video
Since taking office, Duterte has repeatedly vowed to kill drug dealers and users in the midst of skyrocketing reports of extrajudicial executions by the police and so-called vigilantes. On August 6, he warned drug dealers: “My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights, you better believe me.” He praised the soaring body count of victims of police killings as proof of the “success” of his “war on drugs.”
Play Video
The Philippine National Police announced a temporary suspension of police anti-drug operations on January 30 following revelations the previous week of the alleged brutal killing of a South Korean businessman by anti-drug police. The following day, Duterte ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to fill the gap created by the suspended police operations by taking a frontline role in the anti-drug campaign. Duterte has publicly vowed to continue his “anti-drugs” campaign until his presidential term ends in 2022.
Play Video
Human Rights Watch’s investigations into specific incidents found the police responsible for extrajudicial executions—the deliberate killing by state security forces or their agents of a person in custody. A clear modus operandi of police operations emerged. In many cases, it began with an individual receiving a visit or a phone call from an official from the local barangay (neighborhood) informing them that they were on a drug “watch list” drawn up by barangay officials and the police. Such visits often proved not so much to be warnings as a method of confirming the identity and whereabouts of a target.
A barangay official told Rogie Sebastian, 32, to surrender to the police because he was on the “watch list” as a drug user. He had given up drug use months earlier, so did not go. Two weeks later three armed masked men wearing bulletproof vests arrived at his home in Manila and handcuffed him. “I could hear Rogie begging for his life from outside the room,” a relative said. “We were crying and the other armed man threatened to kill us as well.” A neighbor said: “I heard the gunshots. There were also uniformed cops outside, they did not go inside the house. But the three killers in civilian clothes came and went on a motorcycle without any interference from the uniformed cops.”
Relatives, neighbors, and other witnesses told Human Rights Watch that armed assailants typically worked in groups of two, four, or a dozen. They would wear civilian clothes, often all black, and have their faces shielded by balaclava-style headgear or other masks, and baseball caps or helmets. They would bang on doors and barge into rooms, but the assailants would not identify themselves or provide warrants. Family members reported hearing beatings and their loved ones begging for their lives. The shooting could happen immediately–behind closed doors or on the street; or the gunmen might take the suspect away, where minutes later shots would ring out and local residents would find the body; or the body would be dumped elsewhere later, sometimes with hands tied or the head wrapped in plastic. Local residents often said they saw uniformed police on the outskirts of the incident, securing the perimeter—but even if not visible before a shooting, special crime scene investigators would arrive within minutes.
Five masked armed men broke into a house in Bulacan province where Oliver Dela Cruz, 43, was playing cards. Said a relative: “[W]e could see him kneeling in a surrendering position. The men grabbed him and slammed him into a concrete wall several times, and then they threw him…outside. We saw the shooting, we were just there. Oliver’s face was bleeding from being hit, and he was begging them for mercy when he was shot.” After the shooting of Ogie Sumangue, 19, in Manila, uniformed police showed Sumangue’s relatives his body in the house, and a .45 caliber handgun next to his body. Family members said that Sumangue could not afford and did not possess a gun and therefore could not possibly have attempted to shoot at the police. “He cannot even pay the rent,” a relative said. “His sister paid the rent for him.”
Human Rights Watch examined the police reports in nearly all of the cases investigated. The accounts contrasted markedly with those provided by the relatives interviewed, yet they were similar to each other, virtually all claiming to involve “buy-bust” anti-drug operations, differing little besides the names, places, and dates. While the Philippine National Police have publicly sought to distinguish between suspects killed while resisting arrest and killings by “unknown gunmen” or “vigilantes,” Human Rights Watch found no such distinction in the cases investigated. In several cases, the police dismissed allegations of involvement and instead classified such killings as “found bodies” or “deaths under investigation” when only hours before the suspects had been in police custody. Such cases call into question government assertions that the majority of killings were carried out by vigilantes or rival drug gangs.
Six masked armed men burst into a Manila home where a small group, including several teenagers, were watching television. The men arrested and beat drug suspects Aljon Mesa and Jimboy Bolasa, and then took them away on motorcycles. A half hour later, after hearing from a uniformed policeman, relatives rushed to a nearby bridge to find Aljon and Bolasa’s bodies, both with gunshot wounds to the head, their hands tied with cloth. The gunmen were still at the scene, while uniformed police cordoned off the area. The police report, headed “Found Bodies,” claims that a “concerned citizen” alerted the police to the presence of two dead bodies. A week after Aljon Mesa’s killing, 10 police officers, some in civilian clothes, arrested his brother Danilo Mesa and took him to the local barangay office. That evening masked armed men abducted him from the barangay office; shortly afterwards, his body was found under a bridge a block away. His relatives said that his entire head had been wrapped in packing tape, and his hands had been tied behind his back. He had been shot execution-style through the mouth.
Whether or not the unidentified assailants doing the actual killing were police officers or agents of the police, the similar tactics used in the cases documented by Human Rights Watch showed planning and coordination by the police and in some cases local civilian officials. These killings were not carried out by “rogue” officers or by “vigilantes” operating separately from the authorities. Our research indicates that police involvement in the killings of drug suspects extends far beyond the officially acknowledged cases of police killings in “buy-bust” operations. Furthermore, the government’s failure to arrest—let alone prosecute—a single police officer for their role in any of the “war-on-drugs” killings that Duterte has encouraged sends a message that those involved need not fear being held to account, and that future killings can be carried out with impunity.
Relatives of Edward Sentorias, 34, a jobless father of three killed by the police in Manila, said they had no hope for an investigation of the police: “I saw one of the police go inside with an aluminum briefcase.… [He took] out the gun and some [shabu] sachets, and placed them there [by Sentorias’ body]. I went back to where I was, and was totally shocked. I couldn’t even complain. If we go complain, what is our chance against the authorities?”
President Duterte has frequently characterized his “war on drugs” as targeting “drug lords” and “drug pushers.” However, in all but one of the cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, the victims of drug-related killings by the police or unidentified gunmen were poor (the exception was a middle-class victim who appears to have been killed as a result of mistaken identity), and many were suspected drug users, not dealers at all. Almost all of the victims were either unemployed or worked menial jobs, including as rickshaw drivers or porters, and lived in slum neighborhoods or informal settlements.
The alleged extrajudicial killing of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines needs to be viewed in the context of President Duterte’s repeated death threats against those involved with illegal drugs. There are several legal grounds for which Duterte and his chief subordinates could be held criminally liable in the Philippines or by a court abroad.
“I will kill you, I will kill you. I will take the law into my own hands… forget about the laws of men, forget about the laws of international law whatever.” ― Rodrigo Duterte, August 17, 2016
No evidence thus far shows that Duterte planned or ordered specific extrajudicial killings. But Duterte’s repeated calls for killings as part of his anti-drug campaign could constitute acts instigating law enforcement to commit the crime of murder. His statements encouraging vigilantes among the general population to commit violence against suspected drug users could constitute incitement to violence.
Furthermore, the doctrine of command or superior responsibility imposes criminal liability on officials for the unlawful acts of subordinates, where the superior knew or had reason to know of the unlawful acts, and failed to prevent or punish those acts. The unlawful killings being carried out by police forces ultimately under Duterte’s command have repeatedly been brought to his attention by the media, the United Nations, foreign governments, and domestic and international nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch. His public comments in response to those allegations are evidence that he knows about them. As their continuing public statements make clear, Duterte and his top subordinates have denied or downplayed the illegality of police actions, showing no inclination or intent to investigate alleged crimes.
Finally, the president, senior officials, and others implicated in unlawful killings could be held liable for crimes against humanity, which are serious offenses committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. The numerous and seemingly organized deadly attacks on the publicly targeted group of drug suspects could amount to crimes against humanity as defined by the International Criminal Court, to which the Philippines is a party.
My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights, you better believe me. ― Rodrigo Duterte, August 6, 2016
Duterte’s War on Drugs not only flagrantly violates human rights, it is also likely to have significant negative public health consequences. Human Rights Watch has documented in various countries that harsh drug enforcement can lead to drug users going underground away from critical health services. This can fuel the transmission of HIV and Hepatitis C among people who used drugs and may discourage people with drug dependence from seeking effective treatment services. Indeed, UN agencies such as UNAIDS and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime recommend a shift away from law enforcement-based approaches to drugs in favor of a public health approach. Human Rights Watch believes that countries should decriminalize possession of drugs for personal use.
President Duterte has a legal responsibility to publicly direct the Philippine National Police to end their campaign of extrajudicial executions of suspected drug dealers and users. The National Bureau of Investigation and Ombudsman’s Office should impartially investigate the killings and seek prosecutions of all those responsible. Congress should hold extensive hearings on the issue and adopt measures to prevent further such killings. Donor countries to the Philippines should end all assistance to the Philippine National Police until the killings cease and meaningful investigations are undertaken and consider redirecting that assistance to community-based harm reduction programs that are appropriate and effective.
Key Recommendations
To the Philippine Government
Direct the Philippine National Police to end their campaign of extrajudicial executions of suspected drug dealers and users;
The National Bureau of Investigation and Ombudsman’s Office should impartially investigate the killings and seek prosecutions of all those responsible;
Congress should hold extensive hearings on the issue and adopt measures to prevent further such killings.
To International Donors
End all assistance to the Philippine National Police until the killings cease and meaningful investigations are undertaken and consider redirecting that assistance to community-based harm reduction programs that are appropriate and effective.
To the United Nations Human Rights Council
Urgently create an independent, international investigation into the killings to determine responsibility and ensure mechanisms for accountability.
Methodology
From October 2016 to January 2017, Human Rights Watch investigated 24 incidents of killings of alleged drug dealers and users, involving 32 victims, that occurred in Metro Manila, the National Capital Region of the Philippines, and nearby provinces since President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30, 2016. These were a small percentage of the more than 7,080 such killings that the latest statistics from the Philippine National Police indicate have occurred between July 1, 2016 and January 31, 2017.
Because such killings were ongoing at the time of the research, Human Rights Watch took extensive security precautions to ensure the security of witnesses and relatives of the victims. The impoverished urban neighborhoods where most killings have taken place have a high presence of police informants who can be expected to pass on information about human rights investigations into alleged abuses by the police. So rather than interview people in their neighborhoods, Human Rights Watch spoke to relatives and witnesses in locations where they could be interviewed safely and in private. Interviews were conducted in Tagalog, the dominant language in the Manila area, through the use of an interpreter.
For security reasons, the names of witnesses and relatives interviewed by Human Rights Watch are not included in the report, and other identifying information has also been withheld. Human Rights Watch did not provide incentives to persons interviewed, although we did reimburse the travel and telecommunication costs of interviews, and provided food at mealtimes.
In almost all cases, Human Rights Watch was able to obtain the initial police version of events, contained in police records as “spot” or “incident” reports. The information contained in those reports is also included in our report, and contrasted with the information we collected from witnesses and relatives.
I. Background
Extrajudicial Killings as “Crime Control”
When Rodrigo Duterte was contemplating running for president of the Philippines in 2015, he made clear his intention to eliminate crime by eliminating criminals: “If by chance that God will place me there, watch out because the 1,000 [people reportedly executed while Duterte was mayor of Davao City] will become 100,000. You will see the fish in Manila Bay getting fat. That is where I will dump you.”
Three months after that speech, he renewed his pledge: “If I became president, you better hide. That 1,000 will reach 50,000. I would kill all of you who make the lives of Filipinos miserable.” A year later, on May 9, 2016, Duterte, then 71, was elected president by winning 39 percent of the vote in a race against five other candidates. His first six months in office has been a human rights calamity for the Philippines.
Click to expand Image Police crime scene investigators under Jones Bridge in Binondo, Manila after police shot dead suspected drug dealers Cyril Raymundo, Eduardo Aquino and Edgar Cumbis in a “buy-bust” operation. December 5, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
For Filipinos who took note of Davao City, where Duterte was mayor for more than two decades, the killing of several thousand suspected drug dealers and users in a matter of months would have come as no surprise. Indeed, his “Duterte Harry” reputation, built on a Davao City body count if not on actual reduction of crime in the city, gained him voters as well as lost them. Duterte’s assertion that his ruthless anti-crime approach resulted in a reduction in Davao City crime rates are belied by Davao City police crime data, close analysis of which indicates a sharp upward trend in crime rates from 1999-2008, when the anti-crime campaign was carried out.[7] Duterte’s assertion, of course, also ignores the very real crime wave unleashed by his own policy—namely, the murder of hundreds of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children.
I will definitely kill you. I will win because of breakdown in law and order. I do not want to commit a crime. But if by chance per chance God will place me there, stay on guard because that 1,000 will become 100,000. You will see the fish in Manila Bay becoming fatter. That is where I will throw you. ― Rodrigo Duterte, May 24, 2016
On numerous occasions as mayor, Duterte claimed personal responsibility for the policy of killing drug suspects. For example, in February 2009, Duterte stated: “If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the mayor, you are a legitimate target of assassination.”
Duterte is not the only Philippine mayor implicated in extrajudicial executions of alleged criminals. Alfredo Lim, a former police officer and chief of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), was implicated in using similar tactics while mayor of the capital, Manila, from 1992 to 1998. He was never prosecuted for his alleged role in the summary executions of dozens of suspected drug dealers and other alleged criminals. Instead, his reputation as an anti-crime crusader buoyed his election to the Philippine Senate in 2004 and his later re-election as Manila’s mayor. The then-mayor of Tagum City, Rey Uy, along with close aides and city police officers, hired, equipped, and paid for an operation that at its height consisted of 14 hit men and accomplices between January 2007 and March 2013.
That death squad, many members of which were on the city government payroll with the Civil Security Unit, a City Hall bureau tasked with traffic management and providing security in markets and schools, is implicated in the killings of at least 298 people.
Duterte the “Death Squad” Mayor
Am I the death squad? True. That is true. ― Rodrigo Duterte, May 24, 2016
Rodrigo Duterte first ran for mayor of Davao City in 1988 on a campaign to restore law and order in the city, the largest on the main southern island of Mindanao. At that time, Davao City was known as the “murder capital” of the Philippines. Communist insurgents and government security forces gunned down each other—and many civilians—day and night on Davao City’s streets and barrios.
Duterte was elected mayor in part on his reputation as a city prosecutor said to have targeted military and rebel abuses with equal fervor. The son of a former provincial governor, Duterte said his father taught him that elected officials must serve the greater good no matter what it takes, like a father protecting and disciplining his family.
Duterte was Davao City mayor for most of the years between 1988 and 2016. Local activists say death squad killings of alleged drug dealers, petty criminals, and street children in Davao City started sometime in the mid-1990s, during Duterte’s second term. The group that claimed to be responsible for the killings was called Suluguon sa Katawhan or “Servants of the People,” among other names, but soon the media in Davao City began referring to it as the Davao Death Squad.
Duterte’s active promotion of killing drug suspects led to a sharp increase in such killings during his time as mayor: according to one estimate, at least 1,424 such killings took place in Davao between 1998 and 2015. When confronted with the death toll during his Presidential election campaign, Duterte responded: “They said I killed 700? They miscalculated. It was 1,700.”
All of you who are into drugs,you sons of bitches, I will really kill you. I have no patience. I have no middle ground. ― Rodrigo Duterte, May 7, 2016
The Philippine National Commission on Human Rights initiated an investigation into the Davao Death Squad in 2009. This prompted the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate police officers for failing to investigate the death squad killings, and in 2012 it found 21 police officers guilty of “simple neglect of duty” and fined each of them the equivalent of one month’s salary. The Court of Appeals overturned the Ombudsman’s verdict that same year. To date, not one person has been convicted for involvement in any of the killings.
Human Rights Watch also investigated the Davao City killings. While our research found no evidence that directly linked Duterte to any killing, we found complicity and at times direct involvement of government officials and members of the police in these killings. Relatives and friends of death squad members provided detailed and consistent information on Davao Death Squad operations, which was corroborated by journalists, community activists, and government officials.
In September 2016, Edgar Matobato testified at a Senate hearing that he had been a hitman for the Davao Death Squad and had killed several people on the specific orders of Duterte and his son Paolo, who is now Davao City’s vice mayor. These include anti-Communist radio broadcaster and fierce Duterte critic Juan “Jun" Pala, who was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen in 2003. After winning the 2016 presidential election, Duterte railed against corrupt journalists, who he said deserved to be killed.
Duterte responded to Matobato’s allegations by calling them lies.
The use of “death squads” to target petty criminals spread to other cities in the Philippines. US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks in 2005 noted the apparent rise of municipal government-sanctioned death squads in cities including Cebu City, Toledo, and Carcar on the island of Cebu.
Most of you are clean but do not ever expect that all journalists are clean. They take sides. Just because you are a journalist you are not exempted from assassination you son of a bitch. ― Rodrigo Duterte, June 29, 2016
Human Rights Watch’s investigations of summary killings in Tagum City, 50 kilometers north of Davao City, found that Rey Uy, the city’s mayor from 1998 to 2013, created a death squad that mirrored the modus operandi of the Davao Death Squad. By 2005, the Tagum Death Squad had morphed into a guns-for-hire operation whose targets included businessmen, police officers, an indigenous tribe leader, a judge, and former death squad members.
Duterte the “Death Squad” President?
Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Duterte has initiated an anti-drug campaign premised on baseless claims that the Philippines is in the midst of a “drug emergency” and is spiraling toward the status of a “narco state.” He even released a list of public officials with alleged links to illegal drugs.
If I become president, I advise you people to put up several funeral parlor businesses because I am against illegal drugs … I might kill someone because of it. ― Rodrigo Duterte, November 27, 2015
In his public pronouncements, Duterte has cited different statistics to justify his “war on drugs,” most recently saying that the number of drug users in the Philippines will grow to four million, hence the need “to stop it now.” The Dangerous Drugs Board, in its latest statistics available, puts the number of drug users at 1.3 million. This is actually a significant decline from the 6.7 million that the Dangerous Drugs Board recorded in 2004.
A Reuters investigative report raised concerns about the “dubious data” being used by the Duterte administration to push its anti-drug campaign, quoting officials as saying “data on the total number of drug users, the number of users needing treatment, the types of drugs being consumed and the prevalence of drug-related crime is exaggerated, flawed or non-existent.” Time magazine sought to debunk Duterte’s justifications for the killings by reporting that the Philippines’s crime rate is not as bad as the president depicts it to be.
Click to expand Image A family picture with the coffin of 5-year old Danica Mae Garcia after a pre-burial mass. An unidentified gunman targeting Garcia’s grandfather, Maximo Garcia, killed her while the family sat down to lunch at their home in Dagupan City, Pangasinan. The attack came just three days after Maximo Garcia had registered with local police in response to their suspicions of his involvement in the drug trade. August 31, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
“In the five years from 2010 to ’15, PNP [Philippine National Police] figures show that total murders across the nation’s top 15 cities averaged 1,202 a year. But many more people have already died in the first seven weeks of Duterte’s drug war,” the report said. The Philippine drug problem, it added, is not as bad as Australia’s, for example.
Since becoming president, Duterte has boasted about killings by the police during anti-drug operations and even ordered the police and public to kill more. The day he took his oath of office, Duterte told a crowd mostly from Manila’s Tondo slums: “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.” He has also publicly told police officers that he would pardon them if they killed drug dealers and drug addicts. “Do your duty,” Duterte said on his third day in office.
If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful. ― Rodrigo Duterte, June 30, 2016
“And if in the process you kill one thousand persons because you were doing your duty, I will protect you.” The next month, he said drug dependents are not humans: “These human rights (advocates) did not count those who were killed before I became President. The children who were raped and mutilated [by drug users]. That’s why I said, ‘[W]hat crime against humanity?’ In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you, are they (drug users) humans? What is your definition of a human being? Tell me.”
In September, Duterte bizarrely compared himself to Adolf Hitler: "Hitler massacred 3 million Jews [sic]. Now there is 3 million, what is it, 3 million drug addicts (in the Philippines) there are. I'd be happy to slaughter them,” he said. The next month he referred to children killed in his drug war as “collateral damage.”
Duterte and his congressional allies have also harassed and intimidated domestic critics of his anti-drug campaign, most notably Senator Leila de Lima, the chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights. De Lima had launched an investigation in August 2016 into the “war on drugs” killings, and earlier, when she was chair of the Commission on Human Rights, investigated the Davao Death Squad.
Click to expand Image Jayson Asuncion, 37, surrendered to police after admitting his use of shabu, or methamphetamine, for several years, September 15, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
Duterte accused de Lima of receiving drug money while secretary of justice from alleged drug lords imprisoned at the national penitentiary. His allies in the House of Representatives, which his party controls, convened a congressional hearing where felons and accused drug lords testified against de Lima in exchange for immunity.
The Senate committee stripped De Lima of the chairmanship. The committee later called on two witnesses—de Lima’s former driver and lover, and a self-confessed drug dealer—who claimed they had given money to de Lima. De Lima, Duterte threatened, “will rot in jail.”
Duterte also threatened human rights activists, saying he would blame them if the drug situation in the Philippines worsened. In his first State of the Nation speech to Congress in July, Duterte painted advocates of human rights as the country’s enemy, saying “human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country."
On November 28, Duterte threatened to include human rights activists who opposed his anti-drug campaign on the list of those to be targeted:
The human rights [activists] said I ordered the killings. I told them, OK, let’s stop. We’ll let [drug users] multiply, so when it’s harvest time, more people will die. … I will include you [human rights activists] because you are the reason why their numbers [of drug users] swell.
In December, Duterte threatened to make lawyers of drug suspects targets in his drug war. “That’s their style. They were able to post bail because they have lawyers. They are good, high-profile lawyers. Then [their clients] will play again,” Duterte said in a speech, adding: “Even their lawyers, I will include them.”
Duterte has also attacked and threatened foreign critics of his abusive war on drugs. In August, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, issued a statement reminding the Duterte administration of its human rights obligations. Duterte responded by calling the UN a “stupid body” and threatened to pull the Philippines out of the world body. He then invited Callamard to visit the Philippines to investigate the killings on the condition that he would engage her in a public debate. The Philippine foreign minister announced on December 14 that the government had canceled the planned official visit on the basis that Callamard “will not comply with the conditions of our president” for such a visit. One of those conditions, which Callamard described as “not consistent with the code of conduct for special rapporteurs,” included requiring her to participate in a “public debate” with Duterte. Callamard explained that the condition could compromise the confidentiality of victim testimonies.
In September, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the drug war killings, Duterte said: “Even Ban Ki-moon weighed in. He also gave his statement before, several weeks ago, about the human rights violation. I said, you’re another fool.” He added: “I will continue the campaign against the criminals. I do not have any pity for them. I don’t give a shit. I am the president of the Philippines, not the republic of the international community.” Later that month, he told the United States to “stop the hypocrisy” after US legislators expressed concern over the killings. “They’re only good at criticizing,” he said.
In October, Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, issued a statement that the court was watching the situation in the Philippines and that “any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in acts of mass violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing, in any other manner, to the commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC is potentially liable to prosecution before the court.” Duterte responded by suggesting the Philippines would withdraw from the ICC. “The International Criminal Court is useless. They [Russia] withdrew its membership. I might follow," he said. “If China and Russia will decide to create a new order, I will be the first to join.”
The Philippine National Police announced a temporary suspension of police anti-drug operations on January 30 following revelations the previous week of the alleged brutal killing of a South Korean businessman by anti-drug police. The following day, Duterte ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to fill the gap created by the suspended police operations by taking a frontline role in the anti-drug campaign. National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon confirmed that the government had approved the assignment of military units to “arrest drug personalities” in cooperation with the official anti-narcotics agency. Using military personnel for civilian policing anywhere heightens the risk of unnecessary or excessive force and inappropriate military tactics. But there is also a deeply rooted culture of impunity for military abuses in the Philippines. Data from the Department of National Defense indicate only one soldier has been convicted of an extrajudicial killing since 2001. The addition of AFP units in anti-drug operations—along with Duterte’s vow to continue his “anti-drugs” campaign until his presidential term ends in 2022–suggests that killings of suspected drug dealers and drug users will likely continue indefinitely.
II. Police Responsibility for Extrajudicial Killings and “Vigilante Killings”
Police killings of drug suspects are not a new phenomenon in the Philippines, but have skyrocketed under the Rodrigo Duterte administration. Between January 1, 2016 and June 15, 2016 police killed a total of 68 suspects in “anti-drug” operations. Yet, as this report goes to publication Philippine National Police data indicates that since July 1, 2016 police have killed 2,555 “suspected drug personalities,” while the police classify 3,603 killings in the same time period as “deaths under investigation.” Police categorize an additional 922 killings as “cases where investigation has concluded,” but have not provided details of the results of those investigations.
Following President Duterte’s inauguration, the Philippines National Police launched a nationwide anti-drug operation named “PNP Oplan—Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang.” Working at the national, regional, and local level, “Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang” aimed to create “watch lists” of known drug users and drug pushers, who would then be visited by local police and/or municipal authorities and urged to “surrender.” The term “double barrel” meant to indicate that police operations would target both “drug pushers and users of illegal drugs alike.” Tok-hang translates as “knock and plead,” referring to the house visits done by police or municipal authorities to urge individuals to surrender. However, the “Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang” also had a more violent element, as documented in this report: the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in faked “buy-bust” encounters with the police, and so-called vigilante killings by “unknown” gunmen.
Click to expand Image The body of Edwin Mendoza lies covered with cardboard boxes after he was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in front of a convenience store on Airport Road, Paranaque, Metro Manila. A sachet of shabu was allegedly found at the crime scene, October 18, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
The following 24 incidents resulting in 32 deaths are not a scientific sampling of those killings. However, they share similarities with the vast majority of the cases reported in the media. The killings have largely occurred in impoverished urban areas, many in the National Capital Region of Metro Manila but in other cities as well. Those killed have been typically been people struggling to make ends meet for themselves and their families—work is irregular if they have work at all. In many of the cases, family members acknowledged that their relative was a drug user—typically of shabu, a methamphetamine—or a dealer, or used to be one. But none of the cases investigated fit the category of big-time drug lords—they were people at the bottom of the drug chain.
In the days before a killing, a targeted individual might receive a visit from an official from the local barangay (or neighborhood), informing them that they are on a drug “watch list” drawn up by barangay officials and the police, putting them at grave risk. This might cause the individual to lay low, avoid all outside activities or turn themselves in to the police—all to no avail. Or there might be no warning at all.
It is going to be bloody. I will use the military and the police to go out and arrest them, hunt for them. And if they offer a violent resistance, and thereby placing the lives of the law enforcers and the military whom I would task for a job to do, I will simply say, ‘Kill them all and end the problem. ― Rodrigo Duterte, April 26, 2016
As told to Human Rights Watch by relatives, neighbors, and other witnesses, the assailants typically worked in groups of two, four, or a dozen. They would wear civilian clothes, often all black, and shielded their faces with balaclava-style headgear or other masks, and baseball caps or helmets. They would carry handguns. They would frequently travel by motorcycle—two to a bike. Often there would be a van, invariably white, and sometimes containing markings signifying a police vehicle. There typically would be banging on doors and barging into rooms, but the assailants would not identify themselves nor provide warrants. Family members often reported hearing beatings and their loved one begging for their lives. The shootings could happen immediately, behind closed doors or on the street, or the gunmen might take the suspect away, where minutes later shots would ring out and local residents would find the body, often with hands tied or the head wrapped in plastic.
Local residents often said they saw uniformed police in the vicinity before the incident, securing the perimeter—but even if not visible before a shooting, special crime scene investigators would arrive within minutes. A previously unknown .38 caliber handgun and a packet of shabu almost always would be found next to the body. And instead of fleeing from the police, the gunmen would mingle with them. Human Rights Watch is not aware of a single arrest made in connection with any of the killings we documented.
Click to expand Image The body of a suspected drug dealer killed after an alleged shootout with police in Caloocan, Metro Manila, September 9, 2016. © 2016 Carlo Gabuco for Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch examined police reports in virtually all of the cases we investigated. The accounts differed markedly from those provided by the relatives we interviewed, yet they were very similar to each other. The suspect was invariably described as a dealer who attempted to sell to undercover officers conducting a “buy-bust” operation. Specialized local anti-drug units called Station Anti-Illegal Drug Special Operations Task Units (SAID-SOTU) were usually involved. According to the reports, the suspect, after being put under arrest and sometimes handcuffed, allegedly pulled out a weapon and sought to shoot the police. In every case, however, the suspect was killed and none of the arresting officers were harmed, with the sole exception of one case in which an officer is alleged to have been shot in the leg. In most cases, the police “found” shabu on or near the victim’s corpse.
While the Philippine National Police have publicly sought to distinguish between suspects killed while resisting police arrest and killings by “unknown gunmen” or “vigilantes,” Human Rights Watch found no such distinction in the cases investigated. In several cases we investigated, the police dismissed allegations of involvement and instead classified such killings as “found bodies” or “deaths under investigation” when only hours before the suspects had been in police custody. Such cases call into question government assertions that the majority of killings have been committed by vigilantes "fed up with the current justice system" or rival drug gangs.
Now, if you’re really crazy and your body cannot go back to normal, I’ll just be sending you ropes. Hang yourselves, you sons of whores, I already told you no. ― Rodrigo Duterte, December 13, 2016
Whether or not the unidentified assailants doing the actual killing were police officers or merely agents of the police, the similar modus operandi in these operations shows planning and coordination by the police, and in some cases, local civilian officials. These were not killings by individual officers or by “vigilantes” operating separately from the authorities. The cases investigated in this report suggest that police involvement in the killings of drug suspects extends far beyond the officially acknowledged cases of police killings in “buy-bust” operations. Furthermore, the government’s failure to arrest—let alone prosecute—a single police officer for their role in any of the “war-on-drugs” killings that Duterte has encouraged and instigated sends a message that those involved need not fear being held to account, and that future killings can be carried out with impunity.
Edwin Ronda, June 8
Barangay Caingin, Purok One, Santa Rosa, Laguna province
While Duterte was inaugurated on June 30, 2016, his election victory a month earlier, on May 30, led to an immediate uptick in police killings of drug suspects, many of them under circumstances that indicated extrajudicial killings.
Edwin Ronda, 30, was a construction worker who lived with his parents in Santa Rosa City about 40 kilometers south of Manila. When his father suspected him of being involved in drug dealing in 2015, he surrendered his son to police custody. Ronda’s subsequent arrest and prosecution resulted in a one-year prison term that ended in February 2016. Ronda’s family believed that he had steered away from drugs following his release as he was aware that his staunchly anti-drugs family would again turn him over to the police if he again dealt drugs.
A relative told Human Rights Watch that Ronda went out drinking with a group of friends on the evening of June 7 in nearby town of Biñan. At about 5 a.m. on June 8, Ronda took a moto-taxi home with a friend. On their way, while in the area of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines at Santa Rosa, they passed a white van with at least three plainclothes armed men inside, who stopped the moto taxi, and identified themselves as policemen. Ronda’s friend ran away, but the armed men detained Ronda and told the driver of the moto taxi to leave.
Ronda’s family later learned from his friend that the armed men took Ronda into the van and drove off, but apparently remained in the vicinity of the university. Ronda’s relative told Human Rights Watch that people in the area heard gunshots. When they went to investigate, they found Ronda’s body near the university’s basketball court just 100 meters from where he had been detained by the police. He had a gunshot wound to the temple and what looked like ligature marks near his neck. A .38 caliber handgun and packets of drugs were found near his body. The policemen and the white van were not at the scene when the body was discovered, but Scene of Crimes Operatives (SOCO) investigative officers arrived soon after.
The police report of the incident, signed by the chief of police of the Santa Rosa City Police Station in Laguna, offered a version of events inconsistent with the witness account. The report states that police killed Ronda during a “buy-bust” operation, alleging that he was shot after he grew suspicious and drew a gun on undercover police officers. The report makes no mention of his detention by the officers in the van:
Investigation conducted disclosed that Intel operatives of this station conducted an anti-illegal drugs operation (buy-bust) operation led by [intelligence officers] against the suspect after police acted as a poseur buyer was to purchase one (1) piece of small heat transparent plastic sachet containing [shabu]. The suspect who seeing the poseur buyer is a police officer armed with a [.38 caliber handgun] suddenly opened fired to the intel operatives forcing them to returned fire wherein the former was hit during exchange of fire and sustained gunshot wound on his body.
The police further claimed that the wounded Ronda was taken to the hospital by a police “rescue team” where he was declared dead, and that a .38 caliber handgun with two fired cartridges was found at the scene by SOCO police investigators.
The family blames the killing on President Duterte’s repeated calls on police to target drug dealers during his election campaign. According to a relative:
Edwin was killed after Duterte was elected, but before he became president. Edwin’s killing was a gift to the President, you see the killing campaign started even before he took [office]. It was like a gift from the police officers to the president [elect].
Oliver Dela Cruz, July 1
Barangay Pala-Pala, San Ildefonso, Bulacan province
Oliver Dela Cruz, 43, was a rice and vegetable farmer in rural Bulacan province north of Manila. However, after becoming ill from lung disease, he no longer could do the vigorous labor required for farming. According to his family, in 2015 he turned to dealing shabu to try and make enough money to feed his six children, and for the medical treatment for both his own illness and a son’s hepatitis. When the killings of drug dealers began, his family begged him to stop dealing, but Dela Cruz told them he had no other way to support his family.
On the evening of June 30, Dela Cruz went to play cards at his neighbor’s house. Family members told Human Rights Watch that at about 1 a.m. on July 1, a group of five masked armed men in civilian clothes broke down the door of the neighbor’s house and rushed inside. Awakened by screaming, the Dela Cruz family rushed outside. A relative said:
The other two people inside the neighbor’s house were grabbed by the armed men, and told to go outside. Oliver remained inside, we could see him kneeling in a surrendering position. The men grabbed him and slammed him into a concrete wall several times, and then they threw him out of the door, to the outside. We saw the shooting, we were just there. Oliver’s face was bleeding from being hit, and he was begging them for mercy when he was shot, he was just lying on the ground at that time. He did not have a gun or try to grab a gun—he was already badly beaten and couldn’t have fought back even if he had wanted to.
Family members who witnessed the incident said that uniformed police officers and SOCO officers were already waiting just outside the neighborhood while the masked men carried out the killing:
The van of the local police and the van of the SOCO investigators were already parked on the main road outside the neighborhood even before the killing happened. The five killers came on foot from the main road, they [had] arrived there on motorcycles.… The killers stayed even when the SOCO came. Two of the ones wearing masks spoke to the uniformed police and the SOCO, so they were all together.
Media accounts of the incident said the killing resulted from a police drug sting. However, a police report of the incident does not mention any police involvement in the killing, stating only that “an armed encounter transpired in Barangay Pala-Pala…that resulted in the death of one (1) Oliver Dela Cruz,” suggesting a killing by “vigilantes.”
Ogie Sumangue, July 3
Barangay 621, Zone 26, Binondo, Manila
Ogie Sumangue, 19, lived with his wife in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown, and was unemployed and dependent on the financial support of his sister. According to the police, Sumangue was involved in drug dealing.
According to family members who witnessed the incident, at about 7:30 p.m. on July 3 a group of about 10 to 15 men in plainclothes arrived at his home on motorcycles and in a white van. Several ordered his pregnant wife to leave the house, and stayed inside with Sumangue. The wife suddenly heard several gunshots from inside the room. Soon thereafter, the men turned off the lights inside the house and then left, closing the door. They then departed. Uniformed police officers together with journalists arrived at the scene soon thereafter.
The police, in their report on the operation, claim that officers from Station Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operation Task Unit (SAID-SOTU) killed Sumangue inside his home during a “buy-bust” operation:
Sensing the presence of the [officers], the suspect fired at their direction and hit one of the [officers] who was fortunately wearing a bullet [proof] vest. An exchange of gunfire ensued, killing the suspect, in whose possession police found six sachets containing drugs, live bullets and a gun.
Uniformed police showed Sumangue’s relatives his body in the house immediately after the shooting, and what appeared to be a .45 caliber handgun next to his body. Family members told Human Rights Watch that Sumangue did not possess a gun and therefore could not possibly have attempted to shoot at the police. They believe the police planted the gun on Sumangue’s body in an attempt to justify his killing.
“He cannot even pay the rent, his sister paid the rent for him,” a relative told Human Rights Watch, questioning where he would have obtained the money to get a gun.
Renato Badando, July 7
Barangay 621, Santa Maria, Manila
In 2008, police arrested Renato Badando, 41, on suspicion of involvement in a robbery, for which he subsequently spent nearly eight years in prison. After his release around March 2016, he found occasional work operating a trolley along the railroad tracks where he lived in a shack with his wife. He was an occasional shabu user “when there was money to buy it,” but not a dealer, according to relatives.
On the night of July 7, a large police anti-drug operation took place in Badando’s neighborhood, waking up his wife. Badando told her not to worry, as he had not been listed on the neighborhood’s watch list, and urged her to go back to bed. An hour later, a policeman knocked on their shack and identified himself, and asked about the whereabouts of some of their neighbors.
Approximately 30 minutes after the first police visit, a group of seven armed and masked men in civilian dress kicked open the door of Badando’s shack. They ordered Badando to come with them “for checking,” allowing Badando, who had been sleeping, to put on a shirt and take his wallet with identification.
Soon thereafter, his relatives heard a gunshot, followed by several more, and rushed to a nearby riverside dock. By the time they arrived at the scene just minutes later, the media and uniformed police had already arrived, and the plainclothes men who had arrested him—evidently police officers—were standing over Badando’s body.
Police officials told the relatives that they found a .45 caliber handgun, packets of shabu, and money on Badando. However, a relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch disputes this claim, stressing that Badando had been taken by the police from his own home:
“When he was taken from the house, he had been half-naked sleeping, and the police allowed him to put on a shirt and take his wallet with ID. We don’t own a gun, and we don’t have so much shabu, and we don’t have money. All of that was planted [by the police].”
Edward Sentorias, July 8
Don Bosco, Tondo, Manila
Edward Sentorias, 34, a father of three boys, was jobless after being injured in a welding accident. According to his relatives, both he and his live-in partner were shabu users, and lived in the house that belonged to his partner’s parents, who were in prison for drug dealing. The relatives believe the police incorrectly assumed that Sentorias and his partner had taken over the drug dealing business of her parents. When the government’s Operation Double Barrel began, Sentorias rejected his relatives’ pleading to surrender to the local officials, telling them that the local officials were shabu addicts long before he was.
On the morning of July 8, Sentorias and his partner were having breakfast when a group of five uniformed police officers knocked on their door. When his partner opened the door, the policemen grabbed her and her 2-year-old son and pulled them outside, saying they had come to talk to Sentorias. The police officers then rushed into the home and almost immediately, gunshots rang out. The police officers then blocked Sentorias’ partner from re-entering their home.
According to the police report, the police recovered drugs from Sentorias’ partner when she was outside, and then entered the house to arrest Sentorias who confronted them with a gun and was gunned down by them:
[Sentorias] sense[d] the presence of herein policemen pulled his [.38 caliber] revolver and pointed to [a police officer]. Sensing that his life is in danger, [the officer] fired his service firearm and shots the former hitting EDWARD SENTORIAS Y BULAWAN on the different parts of the body and fell down on the pavement and died on the spot.
Relatives of Sentorias dispute the police account that he was armed, and said that they witnessed the police placing the incriminating evidence. A relative of the victim who reached the scene of the shooting almost immediately afterwards told Human Rights Watch:
We were waiting for the SOCO [police investigators] to arrive. I saw one of the police go inside with an aluminum briefcase. Out of curiosity I went to look through the window. I saw the officer open the briefcase and he took out the gun and some sachets, and placed them there. I went back to where I was, and was totally shocked. I couldn’t even complain. If we go complain, what is our chance against the authorities? The government declared the evidence was found inside his house, so it is their word against ours. I have no reason to lie about this. That is when I realized not everyone being killed is guilty of fighting back. If they don’t find evidence inside the house, they need to fabricate it, so they don’t get busted.
Henry Francisco, July 20
Barangay Bagbaguin, Bagong Nayon, Valenzuela, Metro Manila
Henry Francisco was, by his relatives’ own admission, a drug dealer. For years, his relatives had tried to get him to stop using and dealing drugs, convincing him to go to drug rehab in 2003. Police arrested him in June 2015 for drug dealing, but according to his relatives he managed to avoid prosecution with a 10,000-peso (US$200) bribe to the police.
When “Operation Double Barrel” began in June, Francisco surrendered to the local police, according to his relatives. However, he would not reveal the name of his supplier because he had a relationship with her and he wanted to protect her. Police released him a few hours later but Francisco, realizing he was a marked man because of his refusal to cooperate fully, tried to go into hiding. The Valenzuela police department listed Francisco as the number one suspect on their watch list of drug personalities. In mid-July, police officers raided his house looking for him, but he was not at home.
After hiding at a friend’s home, Francisco returned to his home on the night of July 20, and drank some beers with friends in the street outside his home. About midnight, he told his friends he was going to bed.
A relative told Human Rights Watch that Francisco’s friends informed them that almost immediately after Francisco entered his home, a dozen men in civilian clothes arrived in the area in a white van. The men, whom later police reports confirm were police officers, ordered Francisco’s friends, who were still drinking in the street, to leave the area. The men then entered Francisco’s room by kicking down the door, and soon thereafter gunshots rang out, killing Francisco.
The police report suggests that Francisco’s death was part of a “buy-bust” drug operation, and that undercover police killed him after he opened fire on them:
During the operation, [a police officer] posed as the poseur buyer together with [a police officer] as backup. [The police officer] handed over to Francisco the marked money in exchange for the shabu. They were about to buy sensing that suspect had a transaction with the police officer he drew his firearm tucked from his back waistline at this juncture Francisco leveled the said firearm to [the officer] and shot the later one but missed in return they retaliate and shot Francisco twice hitting him on the right portion of his chest that caused instantaneous death.
According to the police report, police recovered at the scene an ARMSCOR .38 caliber revolver, loaded with five live bullets and a misfired bullet, as well as shabu and drug paraphernalia. Francisco’s relatives do not dispute the police claim that Francisco was involved in drug dealing. However, the relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch challenged the police version of his death, noting that Francisco had gone to sleep in his room after leaving the company of his friends, and that the police kicked down the door of his room—which is inconsistent with a drug buy-bust sting described in the police report.
Napoleon Miras Ai-Ai, July 24
Barangay Antipona, Bocaue, Bulacan province
Napoleon Miras, 27, was a tricycle driver whose live-in partner was a drug dealer. He frequently drove her around to make drug deliveries. He also became a shabu user and small-time dealer himself.
According to relatives with whom he lived, on July 24 his live-in partner went to see her supplier to purchase shabu. Police followed her on her way back home, and soon after her return at about 11:30 a.m. a team of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents stormed the house, shouting “Police! Police! Nobody move!” Local uniformed police secured the perimeter of the home. Miras tried to hide under the floor of the home, but when the police asked for him by name, his father told him to surrender to the police and he did so.
The PDEA agents took Miras outside, but then decided to take him back into the home and take him upstairs while they searched the home for drugs.. A few minutes later, the family members, who were downstairs on their knees with their hands behind their heads, heard eight gunshots upstairs. One relative said: “A neighbor later told us that he could see inside the room where Napoleon was, and he was also on his knees with his hands up when he was gunned down.” After the shooting, the PDEA agents and police waited for the SOCO investigators to arrive.
According to the police report, the police “conducted anti-illegal drugs buy-bust operation against Napoleon Miras Ai-Ai (alias “Nono”), which led in the death of suspect ‘Nono’ in a shootout after he initiated firefight against [police] operatives.” The police report claims a .38 caliber revolver, live ammunition and one spent shell, and an estimated 4 grams of shabu and two marked 100 pesos bills from the drug bust were recovered from Miras’s possession.
His family contested the police version of events, asserting that Miras had not sold any drugs to the police team, as he remained home prior to and during the incident, had not engaged in a firefight, and did not own any guns.
Aaron Joseph Paular, August 3
Zamora Interlink, Santa Mesa, Manila
Aaron Joseph Paular, 24, the father of a 3-year-old girl, found irregular work as a house painter. His relatives said he was an occasional shabu user, but was not listed on the neighborhood watch list as a known drug user or dealer. He had not received any warnings from local officials about his drug use.
On August 3, close to midnight, Paular was on his way to his girlfriend’s house to pick up his daughter when he encountered a group of about 20 armed men in civilian dress. Witnesses to the encounter later told Paular’s relatives that the men, who the police report stated were police, asked Paular if he was “Ron-Ron,” and he answered that his name was Aaron. One of the men then opened fire on Paular, wounding him in the shoulder, so Paular tried to run away and hide. Paular’s relatives said they arrived at the scene soon after the initial shooting but while he was still alive. They assert that Paular was unarmed and was trying to hide from the police. When the police found him, one shot and killed him.
According to the police report, a police officer conducted a “buy-bust” operation, purchasing shabu from Paular.
[T]he suspect sensed that he was being entrapped, as he noticed the presence of [another police officer] who was then serving as back-up. Immediately, Paular reportedly pulled out a gun and fired at [the officer’s] chest and then fled on foot. Fortunately [the officer] was wearing a bullet proof vest. A brief chase ensued and as Paular entered a shanty, he reportedly tried to take hostage a baby. However, before he can do that, police caught up with him and engaged in a shootout [killing him].
Relatives contest this version of events and believe that the police planted the gun, grenade, and shabu they claim to have found in the aftermath of the shooting.
Angelo Lafuente, Benji, Renato Forio Jr., August 18
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila
Angelo Lafuente, 23, had spent time in jail for theft, but following his release in 2012 he had tried to stay out of trouble and ran a small electronic repairs business in his impoverished Manila neighborhood. His father had recently been arrested for marijuana possession, and Lafuente had saved and borrowed 15,000 pesos (US$300) to get his father released, according to his relatives.
At about 4 p.m. on August 18, Lafuente was fixing electronics at his house when someone in the street yelled “Enemy!”, apparently signaling a police raid. Two of Lafuente’s companions, Benji, 24, and Renato Forio Jr., 26, ran out of the house, but encountered outside two uniformed police officers, and four armed masked men in plainclothes who detained all three men. In the presence of his relatives, the police tied Lafuente and his two friends’ hands behind their backs, put them into a marked white police van, and drove them away.
The relatives rushed to the Navotas police station, where about 30 detained persons from the raid were being processed, but could not locate the three men. At about 8 p.m., a police officer told the family to wait while the suspects were being tested for drugs.
At 4 a.m., police officers presented the relatives with photos of the bodies of the three men, who police claim they found in two different areas in the neighborhood. The police report of the incident said that Lafuente and Benji had died from gunshot wounds under the C-3 Bridge in the NBBS neighborhood where they were arrested, their hands still tied with the plastic straps put on when they had been detained. The police claim to have found shabu in both of their pockets. The 15,000 pesos Lafuente had in his pocket for his father’s release was missing. According to his relatives, Renato Forio Jr. was similarly found executed, his hands still tied, in a separate part of the neighborhood.
The police report says “unknown” gunmen were responsible for the deaths and does not address the evidence that the three men were taken in police custody hours before their bodies were found, and that their bodies were found still handcuffed. Furthermore, a witness later told Lafuente’s relatives that he had witnessed plainclothes men with masks beating Lafuente under the bridge the evening of his death.
Noel Alberto, “Sarah,” September 10
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila
Noel Alberto, 23, a father of three, lived with his grandmother and worked as a pedicab driver. According to a relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch, he was not a drug user or dealer.
On September 9, Alberto attended a party celebrating a christening, held at the house of a female drug dealer known as “Sarah.” At about 6 p.m., 10 armed men dressed in civilian clothes and wearing facemasks arrived on five motorcycles. They arrested nine people at the party, including Alberto and Sarah. The nine detainees were taken away in a white van.
The police reported that the bodies of Alberto and Sarah were found dumped next to the Navotas Public Cemetery at 2:30 a.m. on September 10 by watchmen from the neighborhood. Both bodies had their heads wrapped in packing tape, a common practice associated with “vigilante” killings of drug dealers in the Philippines, and both had been shot. The police report claims that SOCO police investigators found heat-sealed packets of shabu in the pockets of both deceased.
Police records—referring to the incident as “Found Dead Bodies”—suggest that Alberto and Sarah were not killed in a police encounter, but in a “vigilante” killing. However, the nature of the incident, in which 10 armed men with face masks took suspects away in a van, mirrors countless other operations by undercover police. This suggests that the police and not “vigilantes” were responsible for the killings.
Bonifacio Antonio, Mario Rosit, September 13
Barangay Rosario, Pasig, Manila
Bonifacio Antonio, 56, was a driver. His wife worked at a pharmaceutical company, ensuring a middle-class existence for the family and allowing their son and daughter to attend university. After 30 years of marriage, his wife had recently retired and the couple were planning to spend more time together. Family members said Antonio had been an occasional drug user years prior to his killing, but not more recently.
On September 13, Antonio spent the afternoon at his parents’ home in Rosario in Pasig City, meeting with his friends Mario Rosit, 51, an electrician, and another man who was a plumber to discuss some repairs on his parents’ home. In the evening, the three men sat outside in the alley and drank beers together.
Shortly before midnight, a group of six men dressed in black civilian clothes, wearing facemasks, and armed with handguns arrived at the end of the alley on three motorcycles. Four of the armed men approached the three friends in the alley.
One of the armed men asked Antonio, “Are you Buni?” Bonifacio Antonio, whose nickname is Bonnie, replied, “Yes, I’m Bonnie.” One of the armed men immediately shot Antonio in the head, killing him instantly. When Rosit and the other man raised their arms in surrender, one of the armed men shot Rosit in the chest, killing him. The plumber friend shouted at the armed men that Antonio was not the Buni they were looking for, and was spared. The gunmen then quickly left the scene.
According to relatives of Antonio, the SOCO police investigators arrived while the armed, masked men dressed in black who had carried out the killing were still in the neighborhood, leading them to believe that the killers were undercover police operatives. Antonio’s relatives believe that he was a victim of a case of mistaken identity, and that the actual target of the killing was a known local drug dealer nicknamed “Buni.”
Rogie Sebastian, September 19
San Miguel, Binondo, Manila
Rogie Sebastian, 32, was a pedicab driver and a habitual drug user. He, his wife, and their two children lived in a house owned by a drug dealer in Binondo. The drug dealer occasionally used Sebastian to pick up and deliver drugs using his pedicab, according to a relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch. However, the relative said that after Duterte was elected, Sebastian stopped using and delivering drugs, afraid of being killed.
On September 6, a watchman from their barangay came to their home and told Sebastian to report to the barangay chairman. Sebastian and his wife went to see the man the same day, and he told Sebastian that he had to surrender to the police as a drug user. He offered to accompany Sebastian to the police station. According to his relatives, Sebastian refused to go and surrender to the police, having explained to the barangay chairman that he had stopped using drugs months prior, and needed to continue working to support his family.
His family said that the police constantly monitored their house, and informed them that they had an arrest warrant for the house’s owner, Fernan, who was a known drug dealer. However, despite their fears of a police raid, the family was unable to move because they could not afford rent elsewhere.
On September 19, at about 1 p.m., a plainclothes police officer came to Sebastian’s home and asked his wife about the whereabouts of the owner, Fernan. The wife denied any knowledge of Fernan’s whereabouts, and the police officer left. At 3:30 p.m., three armed masked men wearing bullet-proof vests and gloves came to the home. One guarded the entranceway, while the other two entered the home, woke up the sleeping couple from an afternoon nap, and handcuffed Sebastian.
A relative said the men produced a list of drug suspects and said Sebastian was on the list. The family argued with them, saying they were looking for Fernan, the drug-dealing owner, and not Sebastian, who they said had not used drugs for months. According to the relative:
As soon as they entered, we woke up and Rogie raised his hands, and begged them for mercy. Then they handcuffed him behind his back. Soon after, they shot him in the foot and he fell down in the room.
The two gunmen then forced his relatives from the room. Sebastian begged them to allow him to hug and say goodbye to his relatives, believing he was about to be killed, but they refused his request. According to the relative:
I could hear Rogie begging for his life from outside the room. We were crying and the other armed man threatened to kill us as well. I told him, go ahead, then we will be in Heaven together. Then I heard three more gunshots. Then I passed out and lost consciousness.
A neighbor who witnessed the incident told Human Rights Watch that he saw the three armed men enter and leave Sebastian’s home without being stopped while uniformed police officers were outside securing the perimeter of the house:
I saw the three cops enter, and I heard the gunshots. There were also uniformed cops outside, they did not go inside the house. But the three killers in civilian clothes came and went on a motorcycle without any interference from the uniformed cops. After the ones in civilian clothes ones left, the uniformed officers came to the house. The civilian-dressed cops came on a motorbike. The uniformed cops were standing at the entrance to the alley, and the house is located at the end of the alley. So the civilian-dressed ones just drove their motorcycle away, right past the uniformed police at the entrance to the alley.
The police report on the incident acknowledged that police carried out the shooting, identifying the chief of the Station Anti-Illegal Drugs (SAID) Special Operations Task Force (SOTU), Leandro Gutierrez, SAID SOTU officer Juan Carlos Cadelario, Chief Intelligence Officer Edward Samonte, and Police Community Precinct (PCP) commander Fernando Reyes as responsible for the “buy-bust” operation.
The police spot report concluded the death was a result of a buy-bust operation against “a notorious drug pusher.” In language that is similar to countless such reports:
[Officer] Juan Carlos Candelario acted as poseur buyer after handing over the 200 [pesos] marked money in exchange for one transparent plastic sachet of shabu. However during their transaction the suspect sensed that the person he was transacting with was an undercover cover police officer wherein he immediately drew his .38 [caliber] revolver and fired twice at [officer] Juan Carlos luckily missing said officer was not hit. Sensing his life was in imminent danger, [officer] Carlos fired back at the suspect thus resulting in four (4) gunshots wound on the trunk of suspect and died on the spot.
The police spot report said that the police recovered a .38 caliber revolver, two marked 100 peso bills used as “bust money,” and three packets of shabu from the body. Although the police report itself says the suspect suffered four gunshot wounds, only three 9mm and two .38 caliber rounds were recovered by police investigators.
Aljon Mesa, Jimboy Bolasa, September 20, and Danilo Mesa, September 26
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila
Aljon Mesa, 23, and his brother Danilo Mesa, 34, lived together with relatives in Barangay NBBS, an impoverished area of Manila. They were killed six days apart, their bodies found by their mother under adjacent bridges nearby. Both brothers had only irregular work hauling cargo in the adjacent fish port. Aljon had no involvement with shabu, a relative told us, as he suffered from pulmonary disease. Danilo was an occasional shabu user, mainly using the drug to make it through long hours of physically demanding work in the port, according to his relative.
On the afternoon of September 20, Aljon went to the local hospital for a checkup on his pulmonary disease. After his return, a friend named Wilson invited Aljon over to his home to watch TV. Eight people, including five boys under 18, were inside Wilson’s house, including a local drug dealer, Jimboy Bolasa. As they watched TV, six masked armed men dressed in civilian clothes burst into the room and asked for Wilson, the owner. The gunmen checked everyone’s identity, and allowed Wilson and the five under 18 to leave the room, detaining only Aljon and Bolasa. According to neighbors, the masked men beat the two inside the room before blindfolding them and taken them away on motorcycles at about 5:30 p.m. Aljon’s relative said that uniformed police were also deployed in the neighborhood at the time of the abduction, apparently to secure the perimeter.
About 30 minutes later, a uniformed policeman told Aljon’s relatives that Aljon could be found under a nearby bridge, and that he was “breathing his last breath.” His relatives rushed to the bridge, only to find Aljon and Bolasa’s bodies, both fatally shot, their hands tied with cloth. The masked armed men were still at the scene, while uniformed police blocked off the area and told the family members not to get closer. The masked armed men remained when the SOCO police investigators arrived, demonstrating they were coordinating with the uniformed police and the SOCO investigators.
Despite the visible collaboration between the gunmen and the police and SOCO investigators, the police report of the incident does not state that police were responsible for the killings. Instead, in a report headed “Found Bodies,” the police claim that a “concerned citizen” alerted the police to the presence of two dead bodies, which the police then found: “Bolasa sustained gunshot wounds to the head and on the left side portion of his body while [Aljon Mesa] sustained a lone gunshot wound in his head.”
Six days later, on September 26, Aljon’s brother Danilo was killed. He was taking a midday nap at the home of a known drug dealer couple, Anne and Jowel, who operated a drug den inside their home. At about 1 p.m., a group of about 10 police officers, some uniformed and some in civilian clothes, raided the house and took Danilo, Anne, and Jowel into custody without any resistance. The three were taken to the local barangay municipal office, where a relative of Anne and Jowel managed to bribe officials to release the couple unharmed. Danilo’s family, having just paid for the funeral of his brother Aljon, was unable to raise any money to secure his release, but assumed that he would be safe in the custody of the municipal authorities.
However, at about 6 p.m., a group of masked armed men took Danilo from the barangay municipal office. Shortly afterwards, his body was found under a bridge one block away from the municipal office. His relatives said that his entire head had been wrapped in packing tape, and his hands had been tied behind his back. He had been shot execution-style through the mouth.
Such execution-style killings are normally reported as “vigilante” killings, but in this case the circumstances indicate involvement by both by the police and barangay officials. Human Rights Watch was unable to find any reference in police reports to the killing of Danilo, despite an extensive search through the police records of that period.
Renaldo Agrigado, Raffy Sardido, Roldan Amora, September 27
Delpan, Binondo, Manila
Renaldo Agrigado, 53, was a shabu user, according to his relatives. In July, following the start of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, local police officials asked him and his son Reygie Agrigado, a known drug dealer, to surrender to the police. The son was jailed for his suspected involvement in drug dealing, while the father was told to report every two weeks to his barangay chairman to ensure that he had stopped using drugs. The family said that Renaldo had indeed stopped using drugs following his surrender.
At about 9 p.m. on September 27, police officers led by SAID-SOTU police conducted one of many large-scale drug raids in the Binondo neighborhood, detaining as many as 100 residents at a local basketball court for screening.
According to his relative, Renaldo Agrigado was sleeping at his home with his wife and children when armed men dressed in civilian clothes, knocked on the door. After Agrigado opened the door, the armed men, later identified in the police report as undercover police officers, dragged him outside and ordered everyone out of their one-room home. Once the relatives were outside, the armed men took Agrigado back into the room.
From outside, neighbors and relatives heard Agrigado begging for his life and screaming from what they assumed was physical violence being inflicted by the gunmen. Soon thereafter, gunshots rang out, and the shouting stopped. After the shooting, the family was surprised to find two dead bodies with gunshot wounds in their home: that of Agrigado, who appeared to have been shot in the mouth, and of Raffy Sardido, 31, a neighbor who had also been identified as a drug user and possible drug dealer. Sardido was not in the home when the gunmen had arrived, so the family assumes that he was brought inside during the raid.
The police report said the men died under very different circumstances. It stated that an undercover police officer tried to buy drugs from Agrigado, and after completing the deal, removed his baseball cap to signal to his fellow officers to close in, “but one bystander shouted pulis yang kausup niyo!” (“That is the police you are talking to!”) and Agrigado fled. The police followed him to a “make-shift house” where “four male suspects [were] having a pot session”:
While searching for the whereabouts of suspect, RAFFY SARDIDO and REYNALDO AGRIGADO fired their respective firearms to the police operatives who luckily did not hit. At this instance, [police officers] retaliated in order to protect themselves from their armed aggressor, hitting both suspects that led to their death.
Agrigado’s family members reject the police version of his death, pointing out that Agrigado did not own a gun, and had been sleeping inside their home when the police came to raid their home.
During the same police operation, police shot a third person, Roldan Amora, 35, inside his home. According to a relative of Agrigado, who is also Amora’s neighbor, Amora was ill with a high fever and sleeping on the ground of his darkened third-floor room when he was shot. The neighbor said Amora was not involved in drugs, and held down a steady job carrying freight at the nearby docks.
The police report of Amora’s death was nearly identical to the police account of Agrigado’s and Sardido’s deaths, stating he was killed during an active drug bust operation rather than inside his home. The police report said that the undercover operative conducted a successful drug deal with Amora, after which a bystander shouted “Pulis onse yang kausup mo,” (“That is police from [station] 11 you are talking to”), causing Amora to flee:
[S]aid suspect [then] suddenly darted to a third floor of a shanty to evade arrest but operative hastily chased the former in order to arrest him but suspect suddenly drew out his weapon and shot the pursuing cop who luckily did not hit. After sensing that his life was in imminent danger, [officer] returned fire and hit his marked who met his instantaneous death.
In October, Agrigado’s relative, who lived in the same house, received an SMS death threat from a man that was believed to be a police officer involved in the killing of Agrigado. The threat makes explicit reference to the police stations in the area, and a police “asset” who is monitoring the house:
Be ready, I’m gonna shoot you next. Not in PCP but in station 11, just count the weeks and you’ll lose someone again in your family, Agrigado. Especially now that my asset sees that you live in your house. Not trying to frighten you, I’m telling the truth, thank me for sending you a warning.
Virgilio Mirano, September 27
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas
Virgilio Mirano, 39, was a father of two who had previously worked as a pump operator in the municipal flood control office. He had lost his post following municipal elections when newly elected leaders appointed their supporters to municipal jobs. Following his firing, he worked only occasionally in construction, and began using shabu “occasionally, when he had some money,” according to his relatives.
Mirano’s relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that at 11:30 a.m. on September 27, barangay officials hand-delivered him a letter, ordering him to appear at the local municipal grounds on September 30, for a mass “surrender” ceremony. Virgilio discussed the letter with his brother, who advised him to lie low until the ceremony.
At about 3 p.m. that day, Mirano briefly left his home, where a lodger was celebrating his birthday, to go buy some coffee nearby. Almost immediately after he returned home, four armed men dressed in civilian clothes and wearing face masks burst through the door, and ordered all the occupants to go outside. Minutes later, the armed men took Mirano outside into the alley in front of the home. As he begged for his life on his knees, the men shot Mirano six times, killing him while his relatives watched.
The assailants had arrived on two motorcycles, but a mobile uniformed police unit was nearby, operating an ad hoc checkpoint just two blocks away, according to witnesses. Following the killing, one of the gunman was seeing giving a thumbs-up sign to the nearby police officers, and shouted “OK, all clear!” to the uniformed officers. The four gunmen then proceeded to drive their motorcycles unimpeded away from the scene through the police checkpoint.
The relative believes that the surrender letter was delivered just moments before the killing to confirm that Mirano was at home, before mobilizing the gunmen, demonstrating collusion among the barangay officials, the police, and the “death squad.” The relative said: “When he received the letter, he signed for receipt and this was the confirmation they needed that the right person was in the area and then they proceeded with the killing.”
The police report on the incident provides a completely different version of events. It states that police officers in the area were engaged in an anti-drug operation when they saw two persons “acting suspiciously.” As they approached the two men:
The duo drew their respective firearms and ran. While fleeing they fired shots on the approaching policemen hitting [police officer] Ryan Mones on the left leg. Exchange of gunfire ensued resulting in the death of [Virgilio Mirano] while his unidentified companion managed to elude [capture].
According to the police report, police recovered a .38 caliber revolver with five live rounds and one fired round from the scene, as well as one packet of shabu.
Mirano’s relative disputes the police claim that he even owned a gun, telling Human Rights Watch, “Virgilio couldn’t even afford to buy food, we had to support him as he lacked a steady job—how could he have afforded a handgun?” The relative also disputed that there had been a gunfight, telling Human Rights Watch that Mirano had only gone out to buy coffee and had been taken from his home and killed by the armed men.
Jury Jana, October 4
Baragay 120, Caloocan, Metro Manila
Jury Jana, 32, worked as a moto taxi driver, and had been both a drug user and a small-time drug dealer, his relatives said. After Duterte’s inauguration in July, police officers came to his home and informed his family that Jana on a list of known drug users and dealers, and that he had to surrender. Jana promptly went to the police station in Bagong Barrio, Caloocan, and turned himself in to the authorities. At the police station, he signed documents confessing to being a drug user and dealer, and promised to quit dealing and using drugs, according to a relative. He was released by the police the same day.
On October 4, at about 7 p.m., Jana was busy repainting his moto taxi in the street in front of his rented room when about 20 men—some in police uniform and at least a half dozen in civilian dress—entered the area in an apparent anti-drug operation. Those in civilian clothes approached Jana and asked if he was Jury Jana; apparently fearing for his life, he denied it. However, a masked informant accompanying the police confirmed Jana’s identity.
Jana’s family said that their neighbors told them that they watched the men in civilian clothes order Jana to stand up and then handcuffed him, before taking him to his tiny room located just 20 meters away. From their rooms, the neighbors could hear Jana being beaten inside the room, and one neighbor told the family that he saw the police dunk Jana’s head into a barrel of water inside the room. According to the neighbors, Jana was begging the policemen to spare his life and stop abusing him.
The family said that the neighbors told them that after a few minutes, about 8 to 10 gunshots rang out inside the room.
At about 7:45 p.m., a barangay watchman came to inform Jana’s relatives, who lived nearby, that Jana had been shot dead by the police while “fighting back.” The relatives rushed to the scene, but were prevented by the police from entering Jana’s room. According to a relative:
The police said [Jana] had a gun, and tried to shoot at them, with a .38 caliber revolver. But this is not true, [Jana] doesn’t even know how to use a gun. …I don’t believe [Jana] fought back.
Human Rights Watch was unable to obtain any police reports related to the circumstances of Jury Jana’s death. However, a media report on the killing specified that “drug suspect Jury Jana was killed after he allegedly fired at anti-narcotics operatives during a sting [operation].”
Benjamin Visda, October 4
Barangay 70, Tondo, Manila
Benjamin Visda, 43, was an unemployed father of two who according to his relatives was a drug user who lived with one of his siblings as he was unable to support himself. Following Duterte’s inauguration, barangay officials warned Visda to surrender, as his name was on the barangay’s list of known drug users. Visda’s relatives told Human Rights Watch that he went to surrender at the local barangay office in July, during a large “surrender ceremony” also involving other drug users and dealers. According to his relatives, Visda stopped using drugs following his surrender, out of fear that he might be killed, as several others who surrendered together with him were later killed.
At about 11 p.m. on October 4, Visda was outside his home with a young relative when a woman approached the two, asking Visda to obtain shabu for her. The woman was “very insistent,” according to the relative, but Visda refused her requests, saying he was not a pusher and quit drugs, before going inside his home. The family believes the woman trying to convince Visda to buy drugs for her was part of the ensuing police sting operation.
Shortly afterwards, Visda asked his relatives for 40 pesos, saying he needed to buy some dinner, and left the home. Almost immediately, a neighbor came to inform the family that Visda had been detained down the road by police officers during an anti-drug raid.
When the family ran outside, they saw armed men in civilian clothes, wearing face masks and motorcycle helmets, accompanied by local barangay officials and barangay security guards, surrounding Visda, just one block away from their home. The men had tied Visda’s hands, and told his relatives they were taking him to the nearby police station.
CCTV footage that was later made public shows a group of gunmen in civilian clothes wearing white facemasks escorting Visda out of an alley. The gunmen then tie his hands as other men with facemasks move in and out of the area on at least six motorcycles. Suddenly, Visda is pushed on to a motorcycle driven by a man with a facemask and a raincoat, while a second man with a facemask jumps on the motorcycle behind Visda, sandwiching Visda man between them. The motorcycle speeds away just as Visda’s relatives arrive, and a man in a white shirt stands among them, shouting into a walkie-talkie.
When Visda’s relatives arrived at the nearby police station on motorcycle, he was already dead: they found Visda’s body on the ground just behind the police station, still handcuffed, dumped there by his abductors. “When we found the body, there were no police around, only the neighborhood people. The policemen who had taken him were no longer there,” a relative told Human Rights Watch.[213]
An entry in the police log describes the incident as a “shoot-out/armed encounter,” and notes that the “suspect is listed as [drug] user in July Illegal Drug Watchlist of [Raxabago-Tondo Police Station].” A police memorandum on the incident offers the following version:
[Police] investigation conducted revealed that after the consummated buy-bust transaction, police operatives on board their motorcycles brought the suspect to the Station for inventory. While on the way traversing Raxabago St. going to the Station, arrested suspect who was handcuffed grabbed the service firearms of escorting police operative caused them to fall down. The suspect shot the accompanying police operative but missed. Sensing imminent danger to their life and innocent people in the area, other police operative shot to neutralize the suspect. The suspect, who was shot, was immediately rushed to Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center by police operative but was pronounced dead on arrival (DOA).
Visda’s relatives told Human Rights Watch they have faced constant police surveillance and harassment since his killing. They fear so much for the lives of their other male relatives that they were afraid to make a complaint against the police, even though they are convinced the police executed Visda.
The police memorandum on the death of Visda names Police Officer Jonathan Ubarre—a member of the Station Anti-Illegal Drugs, Special Operation Task Unit that carried out the police operation resulting in Visda’s death—as the investigative officer in the case. It recommends the opening of a spot inquest by the city prosecutor for attempted homicide “against the killed suspect”; that is, an inquest into the handcuffed Visda’s purported attempt to use a police revolver against the police, rather than into the killing of Visda by the police. On October 20, the Office of the City Prosecutor issued a subpoena to the relatives of Visda to appear at such an inquest.
Paquito Mejos, October 14
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila
Paquito Mejos, 53, was a father of five and worked as an electrician on construction sites. According to his relatives, he was an occasional shabu user, but not involved in drug dealing. On October 7, barangay officials came to his house and told him his name was on the neighborhood watch list of drug suspects, and that he had to surrender. He went immediately to the barangay municipal hall with his wife, but was told no one was available to process his case, and to return on October 10.
Mejos did as told, and on his return on October 10, he went to the police station and was photographed and fingerprinted. On October 12, the barangay officials summoned him again to the barangay together with other surrenderees, to determine whether they needed rehabilitation or to attend a series of anti-drug seminars, before sending him home again.
Two days later, on October 14 at about 2 p.m., Mejos was taking a nap upstairs in his home when four masked gunmen in civilian clothes riding on two motorcycles arrived at his home. Witnesses said uniformed policemen were also present in the area at the time. According to a relative:
They came inside and asked, “Where is Paquito?” I asked them, “Why?” They pushed me out of the way, and two of them with their weapons drawn went upstairs. When I saw them with their handguns going upstairs, I told them, “But he has already surrendered to the authorities!” They told me to shut up, or I would be next. Right after this, I heard two gunshots and I got hysterical and they took me outside. The men secured the area. Moments later, the SOCO investigators arrived. The armed men were still here. The police claimed they fo
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/02/license-kill/philippine-police-killings-dutertes-war-drugs
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
