T

HOUSANDS have been killed in the Duterte administration’s war against illegal drugs and the standard police categorization separates those supposedly killed in legitimate encounters (in Tagalog, “nanlaban”) and those who are victims of extra-judicial killings or killed vigilantestyle). The bigger number of deaths are of the “nanlaban” category.

Now comes the result of the latest survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) conducted in June that showed that a majority of Filipinos (54 percent) doubt the standard claim by the Philippine National Police (PNP) that those killed in the war against drugs resisted arrest. On top of that, almost one half of Filipinos (49 percent) said that those killed were not drug pushers.

Note that the survey was conducted two months before elements of thew Caloocan police killed an apparently innocent minor, Kian Loyd delos Santos, in what was claimed as an anti-drug operation. That incident