PHILIPPINE police may have committed crimes against humanity by killing thousands of alleged drug offenders or paying others to murder as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
The Philippine National Police and top lawmakers strongly disputed the human rights movement’s claim, saying the killings were “obviously not the norm” and the assertions were based on “loose talks.”
An Amnesty report, which followed an in-depth investigation into the drug war, also outlined what it said were other widespread police crimes aside from extrajudicial killings that mainly targeted the poor.
“Acting on orders from the very top, policemen and unknown killers have been targeting anybody remotely suspected of using or selling drugs,” Rawya Rageh, a senior crisis adviser for Amnesty, told AFP.
“Our investigation shows that this wave of extrajudicial killings has been widespread, deliberate and systematic, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Among a litany of alleged crimes, Amnesty accused police of shooting dead defenseless people, fabricating evidence, paying assassins to murder drug addicts, and stealing from those they killed or the victims’ relatives.
It also said police were being paid by their superiors to kill, and documented victims as young as eight years old.
In a press conference, Wilson Papa of Amnesty Philippines said several police officers sanctioned the killings “to the extent they would give ‘cash incentives’ to vigilantes to kill a drug user for P5,000, and a pusher from P10,000 to P15,000.”
“There have been direct links between paid killers and state authorities,” Papa told Manila Standard.
The police “are behaving like the criminal underworld that they are supposed to be enforcing the law against,” the Amnesty International report said.
Duterte won the presidential elections last year after promising during the campaign to eradicate drugs in society within six months by killing tens of thousands of people.
However, PNP spokesman Senior Supt. Dionardo Carlos said the deaths were not the norm, “despite a higher number of police operations that have resulted in inevitable fatal encounters with criminal elements lately.”
Philippine police have always observed and upheld human rights “as a fundamental principle in policing,” Carlos said.
But the police “cannot help being typecast as alleged violators of human rights, partly because of the basic nature of its law enforcement function that constantly places [the policeman] in cross-swords engagement or armed contact with criminal elements,” the PNP spokesman added.
‘Loose talks, not their business’
In Congress, Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief, dismissed Amnesty’s claims, but stressed he was not defending the Duterte administration.
“There were loose talks but that’s just about it. I don’t know where AI got their information,” Lacson said.
The senator said accusing the police “is one thing, proving it is another thing. There should be evidence. Unless [Amnesty] can present evidence, it will just remain loose talk or rumor.”
House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, a close ally of the President, was more direct in attacking Amnesty.
“Why meddle with us?” Alvarez said. “They are not the ones having the problem, we are the ones having the problem. What business do they have here? We are a sovereign country.”
Alvarez, who recently called for PNP Chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to resign after the recent abduction and killing of Korean Jee Ick Joo over supposed drug links, said Amnesty “are not the ones suffering because of all these crimes.”
“They must not meddle because they are not affected by these. They are far away from us,” the Speaker said.
Lacson said until Amnesty shows evidence to back its claims, Congress could not exercise its oversight function over the police.
“We have the obligation to our countrymen to stand up also, and ask for the necessary evidence to prove [Amnesty’s allegations]. If there are evidences, that is the time we should take action as a people.
Senator Leila de Lima, who opposes Duterte, said she “always thought” the Amnesty report “was the reality,” reason why she objected the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.
“It’s clear to me the police are behind the killings, or their agents or their assets. Probably paid or not [to kill drug suspects],” De Lima said. “I’ve known that all this time because we also got this information [that Amnesty has]. I wanted it to be pinpointed in the EJK [extrajudicial killings] hearings, which unfortunately were terminated.”
‘Murderous war on poor’
On one occasion, Duterte vowed that 100,000 people would be killed and so many bodies would be dumped in Manila Bay that the fish there would grow fat from feeding on them.
Duterte launched his crackdown immediately upon taking office seven months ago. Since then, police have reported killing 2,555 people, while nearly 4,000 others have died in unexplained circumstances, according to official figures.
PNP spokesman Carlos said the latest figures were 4,744 murders under investigation “that both local and foreign observers wrongfully refer to as ‘extrajudicial killings,’ with 3,459 determined to be “non-drug-related incidents.”
Only 1,285 of these incidents “had something to do with the victim’s association with drug activities,” added Carlos. He claimed “significant breakthroughs” in investigating the killings with the arrest of 694 suspects and the identification of 467 others believed involved in 1,212 deaths, with criminal cases filed in the courts.
The PNP and every law enforcement agency in the world have different methods and systems of reporting crime data, the police spokesman said.
“I guess we are just more transparent and liberal in reporting ours, such that we are more prone to deeper scrutiny, especially by foreign observers who have very little understanding of the peculiarities and dynamics of the crime and drug situation in the Philippines,” Carlos added.
However, the Amnesty report said Duterte had incited the police to carry out a murderous war on the poor, and warned that the International Criminal Court would need to start investigating unless Philippine authorities did not stop it soon.
“The police killings are driven by pressures from the top, including an order to ‘neutralize’ alleged drug offenders, as well as financial incentives. They have created an informal economy of death,” the report said.
Amnesty said it investigated the deaths of 59 people, and found most them were extrajudicial killings.
As president, Duterte has repeatedly urged police to kill drug users as well as traffickers. He said in December he had personally killed people when he was mayor of Davao City to set an example for police.
Three months earlier, the President he said he would be “happy to slaughter” three million drug addicts, and likened his campaign to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Jews in Europe.
‘I will surrender, sir’
In several cases, witnesses to killings or victims’ relatives told Amnesty that the person shot dead was unarmed and had not resisted arrest. Police also planted drugs and weapons that they later “seized” as evidence, Amnesty said.
“I will surrender, I will surrender, sir,” Gener Rondina, 38, told police after they broke into his home in the central city of Cebu, a witness told Amnesty.
Rondina then knelt and raised his arms behind his head but police then shot him dead, Amnesty said, citing the witness.
When family members were allowed into the house six hours after Gener was shot, valuables including a laptop, watch and money were missing, according to Amnesty.
Police alleged Rondina had a gun and they acted in self-defense, and the method of killing as well as the justification was typical of the drug war, Amnesty said.
Amnesty also warned that the lists of drug suspects that police were using to target people were deeply flawed.
This was partly because many people were placed on the lists simply after being reported by fellow community members, without any further investigation, according to Amnesty.
Duterte had until this week been unrepentant in response to criticism of his drug war and the police, insisting he was acting within the law but that extreme measures must be taken to stop the Philippines from becoming a narco state.
After a series of scandals emerged over the past month in which police were caught committing murder, kidnapping, extortion and robbery, Duterte this week ordered them to stop all activities related to the drug war.
He described the police force as “corrupt to the core” and vowed to cleanse it. But he also vowed the drug war would continue until the last day of his term, in 2022.
He said police would return to the drug war after he reorganized the force and, in the meantime, the military would become more involved. With Francisco Tuyay, Macon Ramos-Araneta and Rio N. Araja
