In addition to the killings, mass incarceration of alleged drug users is also under way in the Philippines. 12 The current police chief of the Philippine National Police Ronald Dela Rosa and President Duterte’s principal executor of the war on drugs previously served as the police chief in Davao between 20 when Duterte was the town’s mayor.
And yet, far from being an exemplar of public safety and crime-free city, Davao remains the murder capital of the Philippines.
Such illegal vigilante justice, with some 1,400 extrajudicial killings, 11 was also the hallmark of Duterte’s tenure as Davao’s mayor, earning him the nickname Duterte Harry. 9 No systematic investigations and prosecutions of these murders have taken place, with top police officials suggesting that they are killings among drug dealers themselves. 8 A Reuters interview with a retired Filipino police intelligence officer and another active-duty police commander reported both officers describing in granular detail how under instructions from top-level authorities and local commanders, police units mastermind the killings. Similarly, there is widespread suspicion among human rights groups and monitors, 7 reported in regularly in the international press, that the police back and encourage the other extrajudicial killings - with police officers paying assassins or posing as vigilante groups. Both police officers and members of neighborhood councils are afraid not to participate in the killing policies, fearing that if they fail to comply they will be put on the kill lists themselves. That is hardly surprising, as police officers are not paid any cash rewards for merely arresting suspects. A Reuters investigation revealed that police officers were killing some 97 percent of drug suspects during police raids, 6 an extraordinarily high number and one that many times surpasses accountable police practices. Lacking any kind transparency, accountability, and vetting, these so-called “watch lists” end up as de facto hit lists.
The monetary awards for each killing are alleged to rise to 20,000 pesos ($400) for a street pusher, 50,000 pesos ($990) for a member of a neighborhood council, one million pesos ($20,000) for distributors, retailers, and wholesalers, and five million ($100,000) for “drug lords.” Under pressure from higher-up authorities and top officials, local police officers and members of neighborhood councils draw up lists of drug suspects. 5 According to the interviews and an unpublished report an intelligence officer shared with Reuters, the police are paid about 10,000 pesos ($200) for each killing of a drug suspect as well as other accused criminals. 4 Although portrayed as self-defense shootings, these acknowledged police killings are widely believed to be planned and staged, with security cameras and street lights unplugged, and drugs and guns planted on the victim after the shooting. With his explicit calls for police to kill drug users and dealers 2 and the vigilante purges Duterte ordered of neighborhoods, 3 almost 9000 people accused of drug dealing or drug use were killed in the Philippines in the first year of his government – about one third by police in anti-drug operations. That is indeed what he unleashed in the name of fighting crime and drugs since he became the country’s president on June 30, 2016. On Septemafter a bomb went off in Davao where Duterte had been mayor for 22 years, the Philippine president declared a “state of lawlessness” 1 in the country. The United States and the international community must condemn and sanction the government of the Philippines for its conduct of the war on drugs. It is also counterproductive for countering the threats and harms that the illegal drug trade and use pose to society - exacerbating both problems while profoundly shredding the social fabric and rule of law in the Philippines. Resulting in egregious and large-scale violations of human rights, it amounts to state-sanctioned murder. President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines is morally and legally unjustifiable.