35 alleged victims, residents of barangays seek SC protection
Thirty-five alleged victims of police operations against illegal drugs since 2016 and residents of 28 barangays in San Andres Bukid in Manila sought protection from the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday.
In a petition for a Writ of Amparo, the so-called victims and the residents specifically asked the SC to issue a temporary protection order (TRO) in their favor. They were represented by the Center for International Law (Centerlaw).
The petitioners were led by Sr. Ma. Juanita R. Dano, head of a Catholic-based Religious of Good Shepherd in San Andres Bukid. The group helps the families of the alleged victims of illegal drugs operations in her area.
Named respondents in the petition were Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Ronald dela Rosa, Manila Police District (MPD) chief Supt. Joel Napoleon Coronel, the heads and policemen of the MPD Station 6, and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the successor of PNP as lead agency in illegal drugs operations.
The petition named persons who died during police operations against illegal drugs conducted in San Andres Bukid since July 2016.
In their petition, the SC was asked to stop the members of the MPD from entering within a radius of one kilometer from their residences, work addresses of the families of the victims and the residents of the 28 barangays.
The SC was also asked to stop the police from harassing, contacting or communicating with the affected parties, directly or indirectly.
The Writ of Amparo is a legal remedy for a person whose right to life, liberty and security is violated or threatened with violation by an unlawful act or omission of a public official or employee, or of a private individual or entity.
The writ covers incidents of extralegal killings and enforced disappearances.
The petitioners told the SC that “never in their wildest dreams did they imagine that their lives, liberty and security, as well as the lives of their loved ones, will be sacrificed literally on the altar of peace and order in what is packaged to be a fight against the proliferation of illegal drugs.”
They pointed out “the systematic violence perpetrated by, or wrought in conspiracy with, the Respondents through the members of the Manila Police District Police Station 6 over the urban poor community of San Andres Bukid, Manila and its adjacent areas in general, and the dead victims, the petitioners and their families, in particular.”
More particularly, the petitioners told the SC of the scenario where the police “cordoned off the perimeters of slum communities and disabled closed circuit cameras; armed men entered these areas in the dead of night, barged into houses no better than oversized boxes, shot their victims and then left; of police who stood guard, trained their flashlights on houses and windows and shouted harsh warnings at the neighbors not to look while armed men broke down doors and gunned down the victims inside their own homes; of police who appeared in the scene shortly after, carted off the bodies of the victims and directed that the bodies be brought to the police’s authorized funeral parlors.”
They also narrated the “arrest of the innocent wives, partners, mothers, brothers, sisters, relatives or/and even neighbors of the victims and falsely charging them with illegal possession of drugs or conspiracy with the persons killed.”
But they lamented that “as regards the killings perpetrated, there are no cases filed against the perpetrators; and many times, no crime scene investigation is conducted, nor reports submitted.”
“This is how the residents in the slum communities in and around San Andres Bukid have been terrorized and cowed into fearful submission not to seek redress for the threats to and violation of their rights to life, liberty and security,” they stressed.