Duterte drug war is Philippines’ ‘gravest human rights concern’

PRESIDENT Rodrigo R. Duterte’s “murderous war on drugs” remained the Philippines’ gravest human rights concern in 2019, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Wednesday.

“President Duterte’s anti-drug campaign remains as brutal as when it started, with drug suspects being killed regularly across the country,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW, said in an emailed statement. “Four years into the drug war, the need for international mechanisms to provide accountability is as great as ever.”

The global watchdog also implicated Philippine security forces for often deadly attacks on activists in its 652-page World Report 2020, which reviewed human rights practices in almost 100 countries.

Mr. Duterte’s appointment in November of Vice President and opposition leader Maria Leonor G. Robredo as his anti-drug czar raised hopes that drug campaign violence would be tempered, Human Rights Watch said. But Mr. Duterte fired her weeks later because he said he didn’t trust her.

In July, the Philippine National Police said its forces had killed more than 5,500 people during drug raids. Local rights groups as well as the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights contend that the number could be more than 27,000.

Except for three police officers involved in a highly publicized killing in August 2017, no one has been convicted in any “drug war” killings, Human Rights Watch said.

Mr. Duterte continued to defend the drug war and promised to protect law enforcement officers who killed drug suspects in these raids, it said.

In December, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said its forces had killed 5,552 people during drug raids from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 30, 2019.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has yet to conclude its preliminary probe of the government’s antiillegal drug campaign, which began in February 2018.

A UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution on the Philippines adopted in July 2019 ordered the UN human rights office to issue a report by June. —