The world for those complicit with unlamented ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” has just got narrower, with a Canadian federal court issuing a decision that barred a former Filipino policeman from entering the country, all because he admitted to being a “tokhang” cop who wants to enter Canada after his wife petitioned for his admission.
Josue Limmong Ahuday was granted an “open work permit” in 2021 as a dependent of his wife. Two years later, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) informed him that he was inadmissible in Canada as he was reportedly complicit with Duterte’s bogus “war on drugs.” He was referred to the Immigration Division (ID) for his admissibility hearing but the ID ruled that “tokhang” was a crime against humanity and therefore he was inadmissible in Canada as he participated in the bloody campaign.
The ID found Ahuday inadmissible to Canada pursuant to 2.35(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), which covers immigration and refugee protection, and is administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and CBSA. ID determined, based on documentary evidence submitted by the Minister, “that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Philippine National Police (PNP), as the primary instrument of the Duterte war on drugs, had committed crimes, and that those crimes constituted crimes against humanity. The ID then considered the Applicant’s activities with the PNP and, more specifically,” the Drug Enforcement unit (DEU.)”
Ahuday appealed to the Federal Court and asked that the decision be reversed, to no avail, as Justice A. Grant sustained the decision of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in a decision rendered on Jan. 7, 2025. Based on the facts of the case, Grant said: “I believe this application for judicial review should be dismissed. The ID reasonably determined that Mr. Ahuday made a voluntary, knowing, and significant contribution to the crimes against humanity committed by the drug units of the PNP as part of President Duterte’s war on drugs, and is therefore inadmissible to Canada pursuant to s.35(1)(a) of the IRPA.”
The decision is significant since it establishes complicity in the Duterte war on drugs as a basis for rejecting immigration applications in Canada. P. Gillies wrote for the US Department of Justice in 1980 that the law of criminal complicity has been modified by legislation in England, the Australian jurisdictions, and in New Zealand, with some reference to Canadian decisions. “In criminal law, complicity denotes partnership in crime. The doctrine of criminal complicity consists in the corpus of principle which governs the joint implication of each of two or more persons in a given crime.”
It is no longer necessary for proof to be produced that Ahuday participated in “tokhang” killings for his application to be rejected. The classic Nazi defense of “Befehl ist befehl” or an order is an order does not absolve those who carry out atrocities or those who allow such atrocities to be committed. Complicity is a doctrine that attributes criminal responsibility to those who are involved with but do not physically perpetuate a crime, the theory goes. Under the doctrine enunciated in the Nuremberg war crimes trials, those who carry out orders to kill prisoners, civilians and captured soldiers do not deserve mercy even as the punishment meted out to their commanders is more severe. The Canadian decision is significant because it immediately kills the possibility of the others linked to the Duterte war on drugs like Sen. Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa and retired PNP chief Oscar Albayalde to apply for political asylum in Canada or in other countries where complicity in crimes against humanity prohibits the entry or grant of citizenship to any applicant.
Henceforth, the Ahuday decision may be a landmark verdict that affects all policemen assigned to the “tokhang” campaign, from the PNP chiefs to the intelligence units, drug enforcement units and those who moonlighted as gunmen for the Duterte Death Squad (DDS) in Luzon. However, looking into the overall “tokhang” campaign, those who were convicted of “tokhang” murders like the police killers of Kian de los Santos in 2017 can invoke Duterte’s orders to fan out, arrest and kill drug users as a defense, further worsening the situation of the failed strongman. Duterte said famously that he will support all policemen involved in the killings, but retreated and claimed he didn’t order them to kill 30,000 people. It was a grand sting. Pity those who were deceived by Duterte, a confirmed narcissist like Donald Trump.
The Ahuday case must be studied by the thousands of policemen seconded to the bloody nationwide Duterte campaign from 2016 to 2022 and in his campaign in Davao City when he was mayor that led to more than 3,000 deaths. Or they may yet work on the side of justice by making a clean breast of everything that troubles their hearts and minds by telling the entire world that it was Duterte’s criminal mind that set into motion a murderous frenzy, with his underlings willing and able to order the footmen to kill, kill and kill. In the US military, soldiers are not compelled to follow unlawful orders. Why didn’t “tokhang” cops disobey what were clearly unlawful Duterte orders? They took the bloody clown seriously. (DIEGO MORRA)
