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Several times, President Rodrigo Duterte has proudly taken responsibility for the killings in his bloody campaign against illegal drugs. It goes without saying, therefore, that the prosecution of the drug-related killings would have to reach his level.
If he thinks that citing “national security” will save him and the top officials who implemented his war on drugs, including his first police chief, now Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, from being accountable for all those killings, he is wrong.
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) already used that line in the 2018 case of Aileen Almora, et al. Vs. Director General Ronald Dela Rosa, et al./Sr. Ma. Juanita R. Daño, et al. Vs. The Philippine National Police, et al. and the Supreme Court vehemently rejected it.
The Supreme Court’s words: “It is simply ridiculous to claim that these information and documents on police operations against drug pushers and users involve national security matter.”
In his Talk to the People last May 31, Duterte lengthily defended the Philippine National Police in refusing to make public records of police operations in the war on drugs.
He said: “Now this is really a lesson for the human rights; everyday until now nandiyan ‘yan. I suggest that you go to the police and look into the records of these deaths. Now gusto ninyong kunin, may — hindi namin maibigay lahat not because we are hiding some facts that [are] known to us, unknown to you. Eh kasali na dito ‘yong — eh national security issue ‘to eh kagaya rin ng mga NPA. We have records that those who have died but who have derogatory records in our files and may mga references sila na tao and what they do, we cannot divulge it to anybody but only to the military and to the police.”
He said he himself has not asked for it. “I do not even know kung sino ‘yang mga ‘yan. I do not ask [for] it and I do not bother to really go out of my way knowing because kasali ako sa mga tao na hindi alam. What I get is the result of the operations. But as to the basis and to the people involved and suspects and ‘yong mga references nila at ‘yong mga sources ng information, this cannot be revealed,” he added.
He further said: “As a matter of fact, ang sinabi ko itong mga pulis o military who perform their duties and had to kill their adversaries, lalo na sa droga pati itong mga NPA, hindi ho namin puwede ibigay lahat. You can go into the… maybe query as to how the battle was fought, how the gunfight started. But pero kung sabihin mo what prompted the police and the military to go into this kind of operation based on their reports and collated mga dossier, hindi ho ninyo puwedeng pakialaman ‘yan. Truth — as a matter of fact, sabihin ko totoo ‘yan. Maski tanungin ninyo, ni hindi ako minsan nagtanong kung ano-ano ‘yan.It’s because I know that it’s just confidential. And kung hindi nila ipresenta sa akin, I do not ask for it.
“Kaya ako mismo hindi naka — nakakakita ng mga records na ‘yan. And I can understand when the military and the police would withhold them kasi hindi talaga dapat malaman ninyo. Iyan ang na … you know … hindi dito sabihin mo na public documents. “
It is Duterte’s choice if he is not interested to see the documentation of the killings based on his orders. But the public should not be prevented from knowing the truth.
The Supreme Court was very clear about this when the OSG refused to submit documents demanded by the relatives of the victims which include, among others, list of persons killed in legitimate police operations from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 30, 2018; list of deaths under investigation from July 1, 2016 to November 30, 2017; list of Chinese and Fil-Chinese drug lords who have been neutralized; and, list of drugs involved, whether shabu, cocaine, marijuana, or opioids.
The OSG unilaterally categorized the documents and claimed that those under Category 1 “contain very sensitive information with law enforcement and national security implications.”
The Supreme Court reprimanded the OSG, saying it “cannot unilaterally arrogate to itself the power to determine which documents it should furnish petitioners.”
The High Court also reminded the OSG of its earlier Resolution that “the requested information and documents do not obviously involve state secrets affecting national security.”
“The information and documents relate to routine police operations involving violations of laws against the sale or use of illegal drugs. There is no showing that the country’s territorial integrity, national sovereignty, independence, or foreign relations will be compromised or prejudiced by the release of these information and documents to this Court or even to the public. These information and documents do not involve rebellion, invasion, terrorism, espionage, infringement of our sovereignty or sovereign rights by foreign powers, or any military, diplomatic or state secret involving national security,“ it added.
The High Court declared: “It is simply ridiculous to claim that these information and documents on police operations against drug pushers and users involve national security matter.”
Ridiculous, indeed!
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This column appeared also in ABS-CBN online and VERA Files
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra is very grateful and called it a “very significant milestone” because it “did not happen in previous years.”
This is no different from President Duterte thanking China for allowing Filipino fishermen to fish in the area of Scarborough Shoal, a Philippine territory. But that’s another topic that requires a separate discussion.
This so-called “very significant milestone” came after a meeting with newly installed PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar who said this is being done to dispel allegations that they are hiding facts on the killings from the public to protect the law enforcers involved in carrying out Duterte’s brutal banner program that has elicited international concern and condemnation.
No one is biting the bait, especially the families of the victims and their lawyers.
Not Joel Butuyan of Centerlaw, which represents families of the victims of the drug war in 28 barangays in San Andres Bukid.
Butuyan said: “The fact that the PNP’s consent is required for the DOJ to investigate the deaths in the hands of policemen is in itself anomalous.”
“The DOJ is supposed to have unobstructed leeway to conduct investigations when deaths occur in the hands of policemen. In fact, under DOJ rules, when death occurs during a police investigation, the police are required to submit all relevant documents to the prosecutors and the prosecutors are mandated to conduct a preliminary investigation. So, all deaths in the hands of policemen should have been investigated by the DOJ, and the police should submit all documents, not just the 61 deaths in question,” he added.
The 61 cases constitute less than 1% of the more than 7,000 that the government uses as the number of deaths during police anti-illegal drugs operations. Human rights advocates say the numbers could be higher.
The 61 cases, Guevarra said, had been reviewed and evaluated by the PNP Internal Affairs Service which had found administrative/criminal liability on the part of law enforcement agents.
Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)-Philippines that also represents several families of victims of Duterte’s drug war, is wary that “it might be another tokenistic and cynical mirage, a puny, even if sincere, desire at real institutional reforms that actually go far beyond them alone.”
He said victims, families and witnesses in the so-called drug war and rights advocates “cannot be euphoric at this supposed shift.”
“With grounded disbelief, they should see it for what it might be: a finger to plug the hole in the dam i.e. to deflect and dissipate overwhelming criticisms over the lack of immediate, fair and comprehensive accountability,” he said in a statement.
“That only 61 cases are currently seen with ‘clear liability’ out of the thousands of cases that are supposedly within the purview of the drug war panel review is simply incredible and scanty when seen in the context of the records, experience and reality over time,” he noted.
“The disclosure of the records, given the inordinate delay, the hemming and hedging, the issues of transparency, impartiality and independence, and the insultingly petty number to be made available, may even eventually validate the view that it may have been sanitized and cherry picked to be used as possible ‘showcases,’ inconclusive or not emblematic as they may turn out to be,” Olalia said.
The international Human Rights Watch describes the PNP-DOJ collaboration as “a breakthrough” while noting that Metro Manila police chief Eleazar was a key enforcer of Duterte’s drug war.
With only five months before his retirement, HRW said: “If Eleazar is serious about these reforms, he should ensure the police’s full cooperation with investigators into the ‘drug war’ killings and take more concrete steps to hold abusive officers accountable.”
Families of drug-war related extra-judicial killings had long ago demanded access to police records of the operation but were denied despite repeated orders from the Supreme Court.
Finally in May 2019, the PNP and the Office of the Solicitor General submitted to the High Court 289 compact discs supposedly containing information on the 20,322 drug-related deaths as mentioned in the government’s 2017 Accomplishment Report.
But the documents turned out to be “rubbish,” CenterLaw said, as discs contained irrelevant non-drug related cases like a “love triangle” in which the suspect was the live-in partner who got jealous of the deceased victim and a killing caused by a misunderstanding over a videoke song.
CenterLaw accused the PNP and OSG of resorting to “underhanded machinations.”
“What the OSG and PNP virtually want is for the Supreme Court and the petitioners to utterly waste valuable time and resources examining case files which are totally irrelevant and, in fact, absolutely rubbish insofar as the instant cases are concerned,” it said.
The timing of this PNP-DOJ cooperation makes us suspicious that it is more for the consumption of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that is expected to release its decision on the result of the preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines before Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda retires on June 15.
The ICC, in its website, states: “Specifically, it has been alleged that since 1 July 2016, thousands of persons have been killed for reasons related to their alleged involvement in illegal drug use or dealing. While some of such killings have reportedly occurred in the context of clashes between or within gangs, it is alleged that many of the reported incidents involved extra-judicial killings in the course of police anti-drug operations.”
Once the ICC decides to open an investigation, investigators would start collecting evidence. Summons would be issued. Refusal to cooperate could lead to issuance of warrants of arrest and freezing of assets.
The Rome Statute that created the ICC provides that it is the duty of every state to exercise its jurisdiction over those responsible for committing international crimes. The ICC can intervene only when it sees that the government is “unable or unwilling” to “genuinely” carry out the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators.
Guevarra, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council last Feb. 24 said: ”We reject any attempt by any external entity to assume jurisdiction over internal matters which are being addressed more than adequately by our national institutions and authorities.”
Does access to records of 61 out of more than 7,000 cases enough to disprove the inability and unwillingness of the Duterte government to prosecute those involved in the killings of thousands upon the orders of President Rodrigo Duterte?
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