Philippine Drug War: Justice Dept Ends Review of 52 Officer-Involved Killings

The Philippine justice department said Tuesday it had reviewed dozens of cases of officer-involved killings tied to the government’s war on illegal drugs, ahead of the possible filing of charges against errant cops.

Human rights groups welcomed the move but said it was too little, too late because the International Criminal Court in The Hague is poised to investigate President Rodrigo Duterte over his five-year-old drug war.

“The Department of Justice has recently concluded its review of 52 cases submitted by the Philippine National Police and its Internal Affairs Service involving deaths during the course of its so-called war on drugs,” the department said in a statement.

The agency said that it turned over these cases to the National Bureau of Investigation – the Philippine equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States.

“These cases are to undergo further investigation and case buildup for the possible filing of criminal charges against erring police officers,” the department said.

The 52 cases involved 154 police officers linked to the shooting deaths of drug suspects as they enforced the president’s crackdown on illegal drugs. Duterte had allegedly told police to protect themselves and kill suspects, rather than be killed, during the course of the crackdown.

In its statement, the justice department said it recognized the importance of transparency in the review process, as it authorized the release of certain information about the 52 cases. This included the docket numbers, the case background, the names of the suspects and the places where the shootings took place. The department also asked witnesses to come forward.

The agency’s announcement came a month after Duterte told the United Nations General Assembly that he had ordered a review of the national police’s campaign against drugs, while promising that “those found to have acted beyond bounds during operations shall be made accountable before our laws.”

He, however, also made it clear that the law applied to everyone and that all criminals, including terrorists, would be subjected to “the full force of our laws.”

So far during the drug war, only three police officers have been tried and found guilty for the murder of 17-year-old student Kian Loyd delos Santos in 2017.

Witnesses, backed by a CCTV footage, testified that the three officers had led the boy away before shooting him near a pigsty – contrary to officers’ statements that he died in a shootout.

‘Mere filing of cases’

Duterte’s order to review the police campaign against illegal drugs was meant to protect his image ahead of the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the killings, according to Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan, a Philippine human rights group.

In September, the ICC approved a request by a former chief prosecutor to investigate the thousands of extrajudicial killings in the Philippine drug war.

The Duterte-ordered review “should go beyond just a mere filing of cases against erring police officers,” Palabay told BenarNews.

It should also establish the pattern in the killings, look into what the basis was for the operations in which victims were slain, and find out why only less than one percent of the estimated 8,000 drug war killings are under investigation, she said.

“These persistent and unanswered questions lead to a view that these efforts, aside from being  a [case of] too little too late, can only be mere window dressing by the current administration,” Palabay said.

“Without establishing the clear patterns of killings, as well as the level of command responsibility, such piecemeal acts do little to render justice.”

Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, an NGO which helps victims of human rights abuses, also questioned Duterte’s motive.

“It is vulnerable to being viewed more of as going through the motions rather than as a proactive desire to decisively stop the carnage and impunity,” he told BenarNews.

By letting a “puny number” of erring police officers fall, Olalia said, Duterte was hoping to launder his image.