Karapatan calls on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pull all stops and cooperate instead with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ongoing investigation of the thousands of killings under the Duterte drug war.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla had just announced that his department was studying the possibility of charging Duterte with violating International Humanitarian Law (IHL) under a domestic law, Republic Act No. 9851 or the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and other Crimes Against Humanity that was enacted in 2009.
“The ICC has been conducting its investigation on the extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s drug war since 2018,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay. “Ignoring this reality would be counter-productive and will only prolong the entire process and open it to manipulation by the Duterte camp, besides prolonging the agony of the families of victims who have long been seeking justice for their loved ones.”
Karapatan noted that the DOJ’s previous drug war panel, which has been said to be in existence since 2020, barely scratched the surface on the accountability of Duterte and his henchmen, as well as the policies and root causes of extrajudicial killings in the sham drug war.
If the DOJ is truly inclined to look into cases of violations of IHL during the Duterte administration, it need not look far, said Palabay.
“There are numerous cases of extrajudicial killings and IHL violations which involved Duterte’s police and military, in his administration’s war on dissent,” she added.
Some of these cases are as follows:
– In the early morning of March 13, 2020, ailing National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Julius Giron, his physician Dr. Lourdes Tangco and companion Arvie Reyes were gunned down in their sleep in a house in Baguio City. The raiding team claimed that they resisted arrest.
– On November 25, 2020, ailing and retired NDFP consultants Agaton Topacio and his wife Eugenia Magpantay were brutally killed in their home in Tanay, Rizal. The police used the same “nanlaban” narrative, an unlikely scenario given Topacio and Magpantay’s advanced age and the fact that Magpantay was suffering from depression and had yet to recover from a stroke.
– On May 28, 2021, Reynaldo Bocala, a consultant of the NDFP for the Visayas, and his civilian companion were summarily killed in a house in Pavia, Iloilo. The police falsely claimed that Bocala, who was ill, resisted arrest while being served a warrant for his arrest.
“DOJ’s panel, where murder complaints were filed on killings of activists during the Bloody Sunday incidents in Southern Tagalog, dismissed these complaints, to the consternation of the families of the victims. It should now grant the petition for review on the dismissal,” Palabay said.
On March 7, 2021, police and military elements targeted 24 individuals in the provinces of Batangas, Cavite and Rizal, using spurious warrants. In what would later be known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre, nine activists were killed and six arrested in the region-wide dragnet, including BAYAN-Cavite coordinator Manny Asuncion and activist couple Ariel and Ana Mariz Evangelista. Asuncion was killed at the Workers Assistance Center satellite office in Dasmariñas, Cavite while the Evangelistas were gunned down at their house in Nasugbu, Batangas. The DOJ has exonerated the police forces involved in their killings.
Under the regime of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., NDFP consultant Rogelio Posadas, who had gone missing on April 19, 2023 in Binalbagan, Negros Occidental with his aide Lynn Grace Martullinas and habal-habal drivers Renel delos Santos and Denald Mialen, was surfaced a day after as a casualty in an alleged encounter between the military and the New People’s Army. His companions remain missing.
In one of the most gruesome massacres to date, four members of the Fausto family were mowed down with gunfire on the night of June 14, 2023 in Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental. Killed were Rolly Fausto, his wife Emelda and their children Ben, 14 and Ravin, 11. The Fausto couple were members of a local peasant organization and had been repeatedly red-tagged prior to their killing.
“There is no lack of cases to look into, as far as IHL violations are concerned,” said Palabay. “The Fausto family, the Bloody Sunday Massacre victims and the habal-habal drivers were civilians and should not have been targeted as if they were combatants,” she explained. “Dr. Lourdes Tangco was a protected person under IHL,” she added. “Giron, Topacio, Magpantay, Posadas and their aides were all unarmed and/or ailing and were therefore hors de combat,” said Palabay.
“In the case of Bloody Sunday, this can be a chance for the DOJ to redeem itself after it found the killers blameless,” she added. “We challenge the DOJ to get its priorities right–cooperate with the ICC with regards to Duterte’s drug war and go after the IHL violators in the numerous cases of slain or arbitrarily arrested civilians,” concluded Palabay.#
