“We’re told the ICC has directly contacted the DOJ’s witness protection unit to jumpstart this unprecedented coordination”
If it’s no less than the Justice Secretary who’s talking, we should all sit up and listen.
After all, we’ve been told time and again by the previous administration, from then President Rodrigo Duterte to his acolytes and rabid followers, even his Justice Secretaries, that our judicial system, they all chorused, was working—and working well.
That was, of course, a blatant lie. That made them all accomplices in the despicable cover-up of murder most foul. And it’s not just individual cases of murder, but mass murder, or part of crimes against humanity according to the International Criminal Court.
But the facts cannot be hidden for long. Over the six-year term of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine National Police officially recorded only around 6,400 deaths from Operation Tokhang and Double Barrel, the two anti-illegal drug operations presided over by then top cop and now re-elected Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.
Media and human rights groups here and abroad, however, insist that from 2016 to 2022, during Duterte’s term, no less than between 20,000 to 30,000 alleged drug suspects fell victim to extra-judicial killings, or summary executions.
Most of them came from poor communities in Metro Manila and other urban centers throughout the country.
It appears that police offices at town and city levels were given a quota of as many as 30 kills a week or monthly for which they received handsome pay-offs from the Duterte administration—a claim the House of Representatives quad-committee hearings confirmed from testimonies of police officials themselves.
With the findings of Congress that the Duterte administration’s war on drugs indiscriminately killed thousands on expectation of monetary rewards and promotions to higher posts in the police hierarchy, victims are now coming forward.
No doubt, families of the drug war victims have been emboldened by the arrest and detention of Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague in March this year and imminent trial for crimes against humanity.
Before this, the Philippine justice system cannot be said to be working.
How can it be claimed to have been working when only two cases of summary executions were proven by our courts, those of Kian de los Santos in Caloocan City and another in Payatas in Quezon City where the cops were found guilty of murder and are now languishing in prison?
The other bloody incidents that took place daily in various parts of the country did not reach the courts simply because, according to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, of ‘destroyed evidence’
Remulla acknowledged the challenges faced by the local justice system: “It’s difficult to prove the case here and build up the case because those who need to speak are involved in the crime…there’s nothing, not even a police report.
“You don’t have a scene of the crime [investigation], you don’t have ballistics, you don’t have DNA. We need to recreate and redo the case buildup. It’s not very easy.”
Because of the significant challenge of destroyed or absent evidence, the Philippine government has chosen not to pursue on its own the war on drugs cases and let the International Criminal Court (ICC) take over.
“Everything that could be erased was erased so that the cases would not push through…That is why this has reached the ICC,” Remulla pointed out.
To recall, in 2017, the Supreme Court conducted oral arguments on the petition to nullify two PNP memoranda which gave rise to the war on illegal drugs.
The high court then ordered the government to submit all Tokhang police reports.
However, in 2019, one of the petitioners, the Center for International Law, said the government had not complied with the order as it only submitted non-drug-related deaths.
What has happened is that the families of drug war victims have filed cases with the international body.
The DOJ’s Witness Protection Program currently has three or four witnesses on the war on drugs, with more expected to come forward.
“Whatever it takes to protect the witnesses, we will do so…because the prosecution will rely on these witnesses to prove their case.
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The witness protection efforts primarily involve ensuring their safety and bridging the gaps whenever problems arise, allowing witnesses to function properly and reducing threats to their lives,” according to the Justice Department.
We’re told the ICC has directly contacted the DOJ’s witness protection unit to jumpstart this unprecedented coordination.
This is a positive development that augurs well for the successful conclusion of the case against Rodrigo Duterte. (Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)
