Officers of the Philippine National Police force salute during ceremony of taping of muzzle of their guns at a police camp in Taguig City, south of Manila, Philippines, 22 December 2014. Law enforcement units all over the country held a ceremonial taping of firearms as a counter measure against cases of indiscriminate firing and illegal discharge of service weapons during the upcoming Christmas and New Year celebrations. EPA/FRANCIS R. MALASIG The voices led by the Catholic Church in the Philippines against the murderous anti-drug tactics of President Rodrigo Duterte gained an important boost last week.
On March 2 the international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released the results of its own ‘sample study’ into the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings being laid at the door of the nation’s police; allegedly unleashed by Mr Duterte in his drive to wipe out drug dealing and dealers in his country, the police stand accused of direct participation in and the guiding of the bulk of 7,000 fatal shootings since mid-2016.
According to HRW’s Licence to Kill report, which is a study of 24 cases involving 32 fatalities, police records of the slayings are greatly at odds with the testimony of witnesses.
The report summary offers a flavour: “On the afternoon of October 14, 2016, four masked gunmen stormed the Manila home of Paquito Mejos, a 53-year-old father of five who worked as an electrician on construction sites. An occasional user of shabu, a methamphetamine, Mejos had turned himself in to local authorities two days earlier after learning he was on a ‘watch list’ of drug suspects.
“The gunmen asked for Mejos, who was napping upstairs. ‘When I saw them with their handguns going upstairs,’ a relative said, ‘I told them, ‘but he has already surrendered to the authorities!’ They told me to shut up, or I would be next.’
“Two gunshots rang out. Police investigators arrived moments later and were assisted by the gunmen.
In their report, the police referred to Mejos as “a suspected drug pusher” who ‘pointed his gun [at the police] but the police officers were able to shoot him first hitting him on the body causing his instantaneous death”.
They said a shabu packet was found along with a handgun. “But Paquito never had a gun,” said his relative. “And he did not have any shabu that day.”
‘Evidence’
HRW goes on to detail similar cases where police allegedly planted guns and incriminating ‘evidence’ to bolster their cases, and, several cases where arrested suspects already in custody who were found dead were re-classified as ‘found bodies’.
Not unexpectedly, the Duterte administration, even as its leader calls for the slaying of drug dealers, has been quick to dismiss the HRW report as mere ‘hearsay’.
More sinister than this hard-nosed dismissal (and those repeatedly offered to the appeals of the Catholic hierarchy locally to end the killings) was the move launched by the authorities on February 24 to arrest Mr Duterte’s fiercest lay critic in the war on drugs, senator and former justice minister Leila de Lima.
The charge? That Senator de Lima received drugs money from imprisoned dealers while she was minister for justice.
Thus it appears that silencing opposition voices is now part of the Duterte drugs strategy. This is a truly worrying development for those, such as Church leaders and supporters, who dare to speak out on human rights violations in their country.
The Licence to Kill report can be found at: www.hrw.org