The Night Crawlers of Manila: Photojournalism Against the Filipino War on Drugs

Presentation of Phil Robertson, Deputy Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch At SEA Junction, Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center, Bangkok, Thailand, 10 December, 2017

 

It’s a great privilege to be invited here to speak to you about the dire human rights situation in the Philippines.  I want to thank Lia Sciortino and her team at SEA Junction for organizing this important event to commemorate Human Rights Day.

It’s also great that we have a chance to see the powerful images of photojournalist Raffy Lerma, and hear his accounts from the front-line of this brutal war by President Rodrigo Duterte and the Philippines police against certain groups of the Filipino people. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today, even though we’re talking about such a grim prospect. 

I hope that some of you have seen the report that Human Rights Watch released in March 2017 after interviewing those being targeted in the drug war, and the families of those who have been gunned down.  The title of that report – License to Kill – really says it all because Duterte has extended that to the police since day one of his administration.  For those who want to read the report, you download it for free on our webpage at https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/02/license-kill/philippine-police-killings-dutertes-war-drugs .

There is also an impressive video that includes interviews with the relatives of victims of these extra-judicial killings that can be viewed on our website, or at YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=bs5eRSA3GoQ

So, let’s talk about this horrible situation in numbers. 

So far, there have been approximately 12,000 people shot down since Duterte took power in June 2016. At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed directly to the Philippine National Police, the rest are done by unidentified gunmen who are police in disguise or plain clothes, or hitmen working with the police.

At least 54 of the victims have been children, under 18 – according to the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center. Shockingly, both Duterte and his Justice Secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre II, have called these killings “collateral damage.” Increasingly, there have been cases of deliberate targeting of children for EJK – including 14-year-old Reynaldo de Guzman, abducted, face covered in wrapping tape, found dead in a river in September; and 17-year-old Kian de los Santos killed in August.

There have been zero successful prosecutions or convictions of police for these killings despite overwhelming evidence of their involvement. Worse that than, Duterte and some of his key ministers have praised the killings as proof of the “success” of the anti-drug campaign, and Duterte has furthered the culture of impunity for these violations by publicly stating that he’s ready to pardon, reinstate and promote any police officer convicted of a drug killing. Philippine National Police director general, Ronald de la Rosa, has rejected calls for a thorough and impartial investigation of the killings as “legal harassment” and said it “dampens the morale” of police officers.

These so-called “buy-bust operations” and the claims that police were shooting back are so staged as to be totally ludicrous. It’s like the Philippines police have seen too many bad cop Hollywood movies, where the gun is placed after the killing to make it look like self-defense.

It’s been 5 days since December 5, when Duterte re-authorized the Philippines police to resume their role in the drug war – that’s 54 days after October 12, when he suspended police involvement because of what called “bleeding hearts” and interfering Western states. After all, suggestions of trade sanctions by EU parliamentarians played a role, and not to look bad at the ASEAN summit in November, as political leaders from around the world landed in Manila, was also probably part of it.  

Duterte has vowed to continue the drug war policy until the end of his term on June 30, 2022. That’s another 1663 days from now. If you think how many people are killed in the drug war every day in the Philippines, and then multiply it by that amount of days – you can see the sort of carnage that Duterte is promising to deliver to his country. 

It’s worth remember that Duterte infamously said at a press conference “If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have…,” and then he stopped, and pointed at himself, and then continued “Hitler massacred three million Jews … there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”[1]

Duterte called for police to shoot human-rights activists “who are part of [drug activity]. If they [members of human-rights organizations] are obstructing justice, you shoot them.”[2] He’s said the same about lawyers daring to defend clients connected to drugs.

The public threats and various government complaints against Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on summary or arbitrary executions, have been consistent. Basically, the government has chosen to pursue a defamatory character assassination campaign against her instead of engaging with her on a UN probe into the war on drugs. Social media trolling – including death threats – have been continuously made against her, and against other human rights monitors like Human Rights Watch.

When the Philippines CHR called for investigations, law-makers voted cut the annual budget of the CHR to 1000 pesos. Now the budget has passed for 2018, the CHR received 508.5 million pesos, a 216 million peso cut from the current year 724.9 million pesos allocation. That’s a cut of more than 30%, which will certainly seriously impact on the CHR’s ability to carry out its work. But the CHR’s leaders and investigator are brave and committed and I’m confident they will find a way to continue uncovering these serious abuses.  

Clearly, Duterte and his government don’t want the CHR doing more investigations like the one that lead to them finding the ‘secret jail’ behind a bookshelf in the Tondo 1 district police station, filled with unofficial prisoners accused of drug crimes who the police were trying to extort in exchange for their release. In a time of secret jails, and incredible overcrowding in prisons because of the sheer numbers of people being held awaiting trial in connection with drugs, the suffering of those incarcerated is off the chart.    

However, there are some developments that offer glimmers of hope that shifts in opinions are possible among the Filipino people who have supported this insane drug war. In recent weeks, there have been increased anti-Duterte protests in Manila and other cities, and some surveys are showing dips in Duterte’s approval ratings. Other polls are showing significant drops in the percentage of people who actually believe the police accounts of the so-called “buy bust” operations that invariably result in persons gunned down by police in cold blood, and placing of evidence (like a hand-gun) by police at the scene of the crime to make it look like it was self-defense.  

There is also hope that international justice mechanisms will take up the case of the Philippines, and hold officials, including Duterte, accountable. International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in an October 13, 2017 statement that:

“Extra-judicial killings of alleged drug dealers and users in the Philippines, which may have led to over 3,000 deaths in the past three months.  I am deeply concerned about these alleged killings and the fact that public statements of high officials of the Republic of the Philippines seem to condone such killings and further seem to encourage State forces and civilians alike to continue targeting these individuals with lethal force. Extra-judicial killings may fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) if they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population pursuant to a State policy to commit such an attack. Let me be clear: 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.”[3]

Duterte may be in for a very unpleasant surprise in the future. He may not think that drug users are human beings – after all, he’s the one who said in response to discussions about whether drug war killings constituted crimes against humanity that “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… “You cannot wage a war without killing…”[4]

But his views are not shared by many governments around the world, and certainly not by the ICC, whose mandate is applicable because the Philippines ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in August 2011. 

To date, all the ICC prosecutions have involved countries in Africa, and both the ICC and many of its member states hailing from Africa would like to see a prosecution involving a state from another region of the world. Duterte and his key officials might fit the profile perfectly, especially since there is no appreciable progress by police or the courts in investigating and holding accountable those responsible for the wave of “drug war” extra-judicial killings. Will Duterte ultimately become like Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, unable to travel much of the world out of fear that the country he travels to might detain him and turn him over to the ICC, as membership in the ICC obligates them to do? 

Human Rights Watch has a number of recommendations that we are pressing the Philippines government, international donors, and the UN to adopt, including:

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.

We all need to do our part to pressure Duterte and the Philippines government to end the killings, so I hope that there are more events like this in Bangkok and elsewhere around the region to build awareness and demand action. Thank you all for coming out today, and thank you again to Lia and her team for organizing this event.  I look forward to answering any questions you might have.

[1] Oliver Holmes, “Rodrigo Duterte vows to kill 3 million drug addicts and likens himself to Hitler”, The Guardian, October 1, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/30/rodrigo-duterte-vows-to-kill-3-million-drug-addicts-and-likens-himself-to-hitler, (accessed December 5, 2017).

[2] Human Rights Watch, “Philippines: Duterte Threatens Human Rights Community”, August 17, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/17/philippines-duterte-threatens-human-rights-community, (accessed December 7, 2017).

[3] Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda concerning the situation in the Republic of the Philippines, October 13, 2017; https://www.icc-cpi.int/pages/item.aspx?name=161013-otp-stat-php, (accessed on December 7, 2017).

[4] GMA News Online, ‘Drug users aren’t human, says Duterte”, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/579277/drug-users-aren-t-human-says-duterte/story/, (accessed December 7, 2017).