“Justice demands that Camp Crame own up to the abuses committed by its personnel in Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.”
If the government really wants to know the whole truth about the Duterte regime’s brutal war on drugs from 2016 to 2022, President Marcos Jr. should direct the Philippine National Police (PNP) to fully cooperate with the Commission on Human Rights and provide access by the constitutional body to its drug war files.
The PNP has officially acknowledged a total of more than 6,000 deaths of suspected drug personalities who it claimed fought back when law enforcers accosted them. But the PNP claims it has only investigated only 150 or so EJK cases — so where are the files of the other 5,850 or so cases?
While it is understandable that the PNP fears and loathes the idea of another government agency, the CHR, digging into their files and opening a can of worms by unearthing instances of summary executions or extra-judicial killings by police personnel, justice demands that Camp Crame own up to the abuses committed by its personnel in Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.
The Quad Comm at the House of Representatives has already exposed a number of drug war abuses. But the PNP has continued to deny the CHR access to vital police records that could identify those responsible for such abuses.
It seems the PNP has been giving various reasons for denying the CHR access to their records. They have invoked the exemptions to Freedom of Information requests as outlined in the Duterte-era Executive Order (EO) No. 2.
CHR Chairperson Richard Palpal-latoc is understandably peeved that the PNP is stonewalling their efforts to put closure to the bloody war on drugs. “Some simply refuse outright. Others cite directives from their officials,” the CHR chairperson said recently. It is the “reality on the ground” that some police files on drug war cases remain out of the CHR’s reach, even under the present administration.
“We experience this on the ground with our investigators. During the height of police operations against illegal drugs, whenever there were deaths, our investigators would immediately go to the area of the incident,” Palpal-latoc said.
“One of our sources of evidence is the police report. However, there are instances where police stations refuse to provide documents,” he lamented.
The CHR chairperson said he previously raised the denied requests for police records during the House of Representatives’ investigation into former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, where he sat across the PNP’s human rights affairs office.
Palpal-latoc did not specify which House hearing he was referring to, but the lower chamber has so far held two kinds of drug war inquiries in recent months: first, through the House human rights panel in May, and second, through the current House quad-committee.
After that, the CHR reached out to PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil. “However, their response remained the same. They are using EO 2 as their reason for not providing us with documents,” Palpal-latoc said.
The 1987 Constitution mandates full public disclosure of all government transactions and information in the executive branch, subject to certain limitations. But EO2 signed by Duterte in 2016 provides for exemptions.
Some of the exceptions to full public disclosure include information that could compromise national security and information concerning law enforcement and the protection of public and personal safety.
But the CHR, being an independent body, has the power to request police records from the PNP, Palpal-latoc said. “That is the mandate of the commission. However, through a memorandum or directive, that mandate has been rendered ineffective,” he said.
With the commission “exploring all possible ways” to get the information they need, Palpal-latoc said they have reconstituted a task force to study cases of extrajudicial killings during the drug war and identify incidents of police misconduct. “There is still no closure for us. There has been no identification of who is responsible,” he said.
The CHR chairperson is hopeful that the PNP can still revise its policy. “We hope that things will change,” he said. “However, if they don’t, we are studying what else we can do to obtain the documents.”
Victims of the drug war, in their communications with the International Criminal Court (ICC), pointed to inaction from local courts and the police’s unwillingness to investigate killings as roadblocks to achieving justice for their slain relatives.
Families of those killed have repeatedly said that the ICC remains the only avenue for a genuine and impartial investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity committed during Duterte’s war on drugs.
No doubt, cleansing the PNP of those involved in abuses during the previous administration will restore public confidence in the institution as the main law enforcement agency of the national government.
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