ASIA/PHILIPPINES - Parliamentary investigation into former President Duterte's 'war on drugs'

Manila (Agenzia Fides) - The House of Representatives of the Philippines has opened an investigation into the "war on drugs", the state campaign launched and implemented by former President Rodrigo Duterte during the years of his presidency (2016 -2022). This campaign, which aimed to eradicate drug trafficking in the suburbs of large cities, particularly in Manila, caused some 30,000 deaths, as denounced by civil society organizations, nationally and internationally.
The investigation opened in Parliament, led by the Human Rights Commission of the House of Representatives, included several hearings: in some of them, family members of war victims were heard; in others, people implicated as officials appeared; among them, Duterte, the creator and promoter of the campaign, was summoned. Among those interviewed, police Colonel Jovie Espenido, known for his participation in drug war raids, admitted that human rights violations had been committed. Former senator and justice minister Leila de Lima, who had harshly criticized the campaign before being arrested in 2017 for alleged corruption, was also invited to testify: she spent six years in prison, after which she was acquitted of all criminal charges. Senator Bato Dela Rosa, who before the elections served as the Duterte government's first police chief, was called to implement the "war on drugs", refused to testify before the Commission but, during a hearing in the Senate, he called the former president's policies "abuse". "We admit that there are cases where people's rights have been violated. This is why each case must be investigated individually," Dela Rosa said on June 27. Last May, current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also claimed that the "emphasis on law enforcement" during Duterte's war on drugs had led to "abuses by some elements of the government". Yet Marcos has consistently defended Duterte against the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation, insisting that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the country. One of the fiercest opponents of the "war on drugs" was the Filipino Redemptorist priest Father Amado Picardal, who died on May 29. A religious man involved in movements for peace and justice, he had already denounced the murders perpetrated by "death squads" in Davao, where Duterte was mayor before becoming president. In 1999, he participated in the creation of the “Coalition against summary executions” in order to document the executions. International human rights organization Amnesty International said the killings carried out during the "war on drugs" were "deliberate and systematic" in nature and appeared to be part of an "attack orchestrated by the government against the poor. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 3/7/2024)

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