The truths revealed during the recent Senate hearings on the war on illegal drugs have shown that from 2016 to 2022, the State itself became an apparent enemy of the people and exercised power in a way that was an alleged crime in itself.
The gross violations of the rule of law came when the State made itself the police, judge and executioner and bypassed the judicial system as it attempted — but failed — to eradicate the selling and trafficking of illegal drugs. The extrajudicial killing of at least 6,000 innocent Filipinos by police brought loss and suffering to their families. The purported state policy of “accuse and kill” encouraged the police and hired guns to kill with impunity and without moral or legal responsibility. That had a disastrous impact on the psyche of the Filipino people, from which they are still recovering.
During one Senate hearing, one brave Catholic priest, Fr. Flavie Villanueva, dared to stand up and speak for the victims and against the human rights violations committed against them and their families. Nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch claim that as many as 30,000 died in the anti-drug campaign. Human rights investigators, including International Criminal Court officials, are independently investigating the horrendous toll on human lives.
In that hearing, Fr. Villanueva and Randy delos Santos, uncle of teenager Kian Loyd delos Santos, who was shot dead by three policemen in a Caloocan alleyway in August 2017, presented a long scroll containing the names of 312 victims who were allegedly murdered by police and the families they left behind were being protected under the priest’s care project.
Sen. Bato Dela Rosa, the former police general under former president Rodrigo Duterte who allegedly led a death squad in Davao City, said it was all propaganda. He asked why the priest did not file charges. Mr. Delos Santos said there were no police investigations into the deaths, but there were ongoing cases.
If the 6,000 drug suspects did fight back against the police when they were killed, there should have been 6,000 guns as evidence. “Where are they?” Father Villanueva asked. He earlier testified that guns with the same serial numbers were found at several locations where the suspects were killed, suggesting that the weapons had been planted to make it appear there had been a shootout, not an execution. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reached a similar conclusion in a 2020 report.
Duterte made a stunning admission during the Oct. 28 hearing when he told the senators in reference to the police killings: “Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do … I and I alone take full legal responsibility for everything that the police have done pursuant to my order. I will be accountable; I will be the one who will go to jail; spare the police who followed my orders. I pity them; they just did their job.”
The former president also said he had ordered the police to encourage suspects to resist so that they would have a reason to kill them: “What I said is this: let’s be frank, I said, encourage the criminal to fight, encourage them to draw their guns. That was my instruction, encourage them to fight, and if they fight, then kill them so my problem in my city is done.” Those at the hearing were stunned into silence by this admission.
It was only Sen. Risa Hontiveros who asked him if he really meant what he said. “Yes,” he replied.
She asked him again: “Para masabing nanlaban (Just to say the suspect fought back)?”
“Correct,” answered Duterte.
“It is very incorrect, if I may say as a civilian,” she replied.
The ex-president told the senator she had no experience running a city. “If I were to go back to service, I’d do it again, twice over,” he said to applause from the gallery. Former senator Leila de Lima joined in declaring that Duterte, with his statement, confirmed the Davao Death Squad’s existence and his involvement in it.
“These [admissions] are very clear: [the] Davao Death Squad [liquidating] criminals and suspected criminals, inducing, encouraging and prodding people to kill, directly or indirectly, is not part of the job of an executive official, whether it’s mayor or president,” de Lima told the hearing.
The Senate hearing was a travesty of justice. Several senators appeared to trivialize the “war” or condone the admissions of Duterte and Senator Dela Rosa.
When this writer wrote about the killing of street children and human rights workers in Davao City by the Davao Death Squad, he was charged with libel by then-mayor Benjamin de Guzman and arraigned in court. When public support for the child victims grew, and hundreds of protesters outside the courthouse were shown on television, de Guzman backed down and withdrew his charges at the last minute. No matter the trivialization of mass murder, the perpetrators must be held accountable for their countless heinous crimes.
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This column was first published in The Sunday Times (www.manilatimes.net) on November 3, 2024. Print, digital, and online republication of this column without the written consent of the author and of The Manila Times is strictly forbidden.
