First step

Due to its timeliness, we yield this space to the statement of #CourageON: No Lockdown on Rights coalition on the International Criminal Court investigation. – Ed.)

THE WAR on drugs, justice was the first casualty.

This is why we express our full support to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) efforts to launch an open investigation on the bloody anti- illegal drugs campaign. ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reported that “the total number of civilians killed in connection with the war on drugs between 12,000 and 30,000.” We call on the Duterte administration to cooperate with the ICC if it indeed stands for justice.

Achieving justice for the thousands of lives lost in Duterte’s drug war will not be easy and fast but the ICC investigation may provide the first step toward this long and arduous process.

In June of 2016, when Davao City mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte assumed the presidency, he brought with him the promise of eradicating the country’s drug problem. His assumption of power signalled the beginning of his drug war, a brutal anti-drug campaign that would eventually paint the country’s streets with the blood of tens of thousands of Filipinos, according to human rights groups.

Instead of treating and approaching the drug problem as a health issue, it has resulted instead in the loss of over 6,000 individuals and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of families. While we agree that the first casualty was justice, another casualty was public health and the way we ought to address the drug problem.

Five years later, we remain uncertain of the true extent of the ongoing campaign; independent investigations into the operations are frustrated by some sectors within the government, such as the Philippine National Police which submitted “rubbish” case files before the Supreme Court, and President Duterte for his statements that extol the drug-related killings.

The War on Drugs has targeted, killed, and denied justice to many basic sectors of the Philippine society such as farmers, workers, indigenous people, women, media, the youth, LGBTQIA+ persons, and many others. It has also suppressed access to vital information that allows accountability and prosecution against perpetrators of the killings. These consciously discredit the collective effort of the Filipino people and legitimate calls to demand for accountability measures and everyone’s basic rights that this administration cannot uphold.

This uncertainty of attaining justice, in itself, is an affront to the Filipino people. We call on our fellow human rights advocates to stay vigilant on developments in the ICC probe and continue shining a light on the human rights abuses in the Philippines. We vehemently refuse to allow the victims to be reduced to mere statistics and tallies.