essay about extrajudicial killing in the philippines

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The dark legacy of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines

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• Claire Donnelly
• Meghna Chakrabarti

While in power, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte ordered the murder of thousands of people without trial.

Journalist Patricia Evangelista chronicles the leader's bloody 'war on drugs' in her memoir "Some People Need Killing."

Today, On Point: The dark legacy of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

Patricia Evangelista, journalist. Author of the recent book “ Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country .”

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Patricia Evangelista is a trauma journalist and a former investigative reporter for the Philippine news company Rappler. Beginning in 2016, Patricia reported on former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte's so called 'War on drugs.' And we will be talking about what Patricia saw during that time, so as a warning, we may actually also discuss some graphic descriptions of violence and therefore this hour may not be appropriate for all listeners.

But Patricia shares her story about her life during that time and about her country during that time in the new memoir, “ Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country .”

Patricia, welcome to On Point.

PATRICIA EVANGELISTA: Thank you for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: You start the book with a young 11-year-old girl named Love. And you describe how when you meet her, you kneel down and you tell her your name in order to open up at least some kind of rapport between you and her.

And then Love tells you the story of what she had experienced. Can you tell us her story?

EVANGELISTA: I met her when she was very young. She was 11 years old. She was small for her age. All skinny brown legs and big dark eyes. And she was born Lady Love, that was her name. But, nobody called her Lady, everyone called her Love, and only her father called her Love. Just Love. And she lived in the second floor of a shanty with her mother and her father and her many little siblings, and there were many of them.

And one night, late in the night, two men wearing dark masks kicked down the door, and Love's father was asleep. One of the men with a gun stood over Love's father and said, Positive. Positive, he meant, positive for being a man on the list of illegal drug users or dealers. Love's father tried to get up.

But there was a baby asleep on his chest, so he fell back down again. And then he turned his head, he looked at Love, and he said her name. He said, Love. And that was the last word he said before the bullet cracked across his temple. So the baby woke up. And the baby was covered in blood, so he was wailing.

And then Love's mother dropped to her knees. She tried to proffer the sheet of paper that said she had already surrendered, that she had changed her life. And she begged for her life. But the gunman stood in front of her and lifted the gun. It was Love, who stood between the gunman and her mother.

And it was Love who stood with a barrel of the gun just inches from her forehead. And it was Love, all skinny brown legs and big dark eyes, who swore at the gunman and told her to kill her instead. So the gunman left, and they didn't, they weren't gone for long. When they returned, they stood in front of Love's mother, and then raised the gun.

The gunman said, "[Translation] We are Duterte." And then he emptied the magazine. And Love's mother died on her knees.

CHAKRABARTI: What was Love's demeanor like when she told you what had happened to her parents?

EVANGELISTA: She was quiet. But, when you're a trauma reporter, you don't read much into demeanor very often, because people absorb trauma very differently. Sometimes they weep, sometimes they're angry, sometimes they refuse to talk.

With Love, she was shy. She was a little shy. And, but, she was not unwilling to speak. Interviews like this, you don't really ask about feelings. You can't. Because to ask someone, "How do you feel?" in the aftermath of traumatic events is uncomfortable and difficult. And a little unfair. Because of course you're broken, of course you're traumatized.

So what you do instead is you ask facts. What was your father wearing? How big was the room? At what moment did the gunman raise his arm? Because those things, they're factual, you don't have to dig very deep into them. And then when you do what I do, you ask the question, so you can build the scene in your head. So that you can walk into the room yourself again and see the gunman and see the color of the shoe and see how the door opens so that you can tell people the story.

CHAKRABARTI: Did she understand? Not just what, obviously, she knew what had happened to her parents, but did she understand the supposed reason why or where the order had come from?

EVANGELISTA: In the case of Love, the killers were vigilantes. They were not policemen who would, in the aftermath, as is in most cases, would say her father fought back.

As with other little girls who saw their fathers die. In Love's case, it was two men wearing masks. She was aware that there was a threat. Before her parents died, she was very afraid. Because while she had never seen her father use drugs, there were rumors that he was using, and they were living in a place where anyone could be a snitch.

That's why her parents surrendered. In the Philippines after the election of Rodrigo Duterte, people who were suspected of being drug dealers or drug addicts or drug users were invited to surrender to the government and promised they would never sin again. So they're called surrenderees. And allegedly, if you are on the surrendered list you are monitored for your behavior.

There's a larger list. It's called the drug list or the narco list or depends on who you're talking to. These are people who are suspected of using and dealing drugs. And people who are included in that list can be sourced from other surrenderees. Or your next-door neighbor or someone who doesn't like you who decides to put your name anonymously on a drop box.

Or in the case of one man who was killed in Manila, his neighbors voted that he was the worst drug suspect in town. So the police conducted a raid. It's what killed him. Love was not unaware of what was happening. She was trying to convince her parents to leave, but they didn't believe there was a major threat.

CHAKRABARTI: How many interviews like that did you have to do?

EVANGELISTA: I couldn't tell you if I tried, dozens, possibly a hundred. I really don't know, because in the course of one night, in the height of the drug war, there were killings every night. There were nights when there were 9, 16, 27, and I didn't call for all of them because they were happening across the country.

And while there were a handful of us in the night shift, photographers and reporters from across Metro Manila, there was no way we could hit every crime scene. Particularly for myself, I'm a long form narrative investigative reporter, I need to see the whole picture. The rest of the reporters might be peeling out to go to the next scene, I would stay because I have to complete the picture.

So in the course of one story, let's say Love's story or someone else's story, I would be doing three, four interviews. If I were present at the crime scene, which I wasn't in Love's case, I would be interviewing. I would be interviewing the neighbors. I would be interviewing the families. I would be interviewing anyone who I could possibly talk to across the next week or across the next few months.

So I can't give you a number, but there was a lot.

CHAKRABARTI: You write in the book about having to stand over corpses at 2 a.m. And how hard it is to not just process but describe what that is like. Can you describe what that's like?

EVANGELISTA: I can't quite describe what it is. Because when I stand over a body, I'm a reporter.

It's a job. And part of that job is to ground yourself so that you are able to complete the image in your head. I can tell you what the color of the shoe is, or what the tenor of the scream was, but I can't tell you how I felt. Because I felt nothing. That is also the job. I'll tell you instead how I ground myself, so that you can see how it operates.

I work with the night shift, as I mentioned, and it was an honor to work with them. It's photographers and reporters, some of them foreign correspondents, some of them locals, and all of us would stay outside the press corps office of the Manila Police District. Unlike most of them, I didn't go every day because I had to go to the funerals and to the field and to find the sources, so I would go maybe twice a week.

And when it happens, sometimes you get an alert while you're sitting in the press office, or sometimes while you're outside smoking, you see the homicide car spill away and the scene of the crime operatives. So you follow them. Or the longer the war, the more sources we had, families who we had interviewed would tell us about their neighbor or their friend or standing at the corner of the road seeing another body being pulled out.

You go to the scene, and you see the body in the ground. You see the yellow police tape around it. You see the cops counting the bullets. For me, what I would do, was I would ask the same questions every night. Was it a drive by, a salvaging, a body dump, a buy bust? Was the killer a cop or a vigilante? Were the hands bound?

Was their head wrapped in tape? Was the body stuffed into the bag? Was there a sign beside the body? Was there a gun on the ground? So I went through a checklist. I hit every point, one after the other, confirm the street corner, interview the investigating officer, sidle up to the bystanders, find out if they know the man's name.

But what I learned with the drug war, as well, was that there was a value in standing still and just listening for the screaming. Because that's what you know where the family is. You walk up to them, you apologize, you condole, you keep your voice low and your questions short, and then you find out what happened, and then what happened next.

CHAKRABARTI: I should note that Patricia did much of this reporting at the time working for Rappler, the online Philippine news source co-founded by Maria Ressa, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, Patricia, President Duterte was elected on promises to execute this war on drugs in the Philippines.

He was very clear about how he would supposedly rid the Philippines of both drug dealers, gangs, and the users, as you mentioned. You quote him in the book as saying, "Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them." Here's his actual voice.

This is from a rally in 2016, telling his supporters that he had killed criminals himself, and here's what he said.

PRES. DUTERTE: My campaign against drugs will not stop until the end of my term. That will be six years from now. Until the end of my term, that will be six years from now. Until the last pusher and the last drug lord are [slashing gesture across throat.]

CHAKRABARTI: That sound that he makes at the end is accompanied by Duterte making a slashing gesture across his throat. How bad was the drug problem in the years before Duterte was elected?

EVANGELISTA: The Philippines, like any other country, does have a drug problem, but the most, right before President Duterte was elected, the survey the most recent survey conducted was that the Philippines had half, less than half the global average when it came to drug use. And a lot of those users were one-time users, a lot of the users also used marijuana. Although what concerned the president mostly was the use of meth. He claimed that anyone who had used meth for more than a few months would no longer be people.

And he said anyone who believed him, or who refused to believe him, that the effect of addiction was a terrible thing. He said, I will give you the drugs themselves. Feed it to your children. Watch them become monsters. He created an enemy, he exploited every grievance, every fear, fueled by decades of failed expectations, and he gave it a name.

He called it the drug scourge. And he said he would kill the drug dealers, and he would kill the drug addicts, and he will protect the future of your children.

CHAKRABARTI: I want to talk about his own history in just a moment, Patricia, but you write in detail about Filipino history. And I wonder if you could talk about what you think it was or is about the country's colonial and post-colonial history that allowed this violent rhetoric and then action by President Duterte to actually resonate with enough Filipinos that they put him into office. Because this war on drugs happened in a democracy, right?

So was the Philippines already a nation so repeatedly traumatized that a president saying, I will kill every last drug dealer and user, regardless of their age, in this country that made that, didn't make it seem out of the norm.

EVANGELISTA: We are a violent country, but you are correct. We have been traumatized for hundreds of years, and we're not good with reckoning with our trauma.

Even in near history in the '70s and '80s, we had the martial law dictatorship. We called it the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, and they were overthrown in 1986, and that's when the democracy came back to the Philippines. And just very recently, we elected as President, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

His vice president is Sara Duterte. Just to demonstrate how little we are able to hold our leaders accountable and how much of a failure there is in national memory. It is the same with years of colonization and it is the same with years of trauma that we don't account for. So when we elected Rodrigo Duterte, we may have elected a man who said, I will kill them all.

But we also elected a man in an excess of hope, that this man was different, that he felt the same rage as everyone else, and that when he came to power, life would be different for all of us who have been shamed, who have been ignored, who have been told that we just have to take it and swallow it and roll over.

Yes, all of it mattered. Colonization mattered, poverty mattered, predation mattered, a failure of accountability mattered. All of it mattered. And then, after years of terrible things happening, the terrible became ordinary. And then we applauded.

CHAKRABARTI: Duterte also frequently called himself an ordinary Filipino. That he understood deeply and knew the sentiment of Filipinos living far outside of Manila, for example. In the eyes of the international community, perhaps we did not pay sufficient attention to someone like Duterte prior to him becoming president.

So I would actually love to hear from you some of a detailed history of who he was, and in fact, how he ruled even before becoming the leader of the entire nation. So first of all, was he an ordinary Filipino?

EVANGELISTA: He does like to say that often. I am just an ordinary Filipino. I am one of you. Occasionally he says I'm just an ordinary killer.

And he said he was with the poor, he understood the poor. But Rodrigo Duterte was a governor's son. And he grew up in Davao City, in a relatively comfortable life. He went to private schools, his mother was well known in the city, was in fact a very civil minded individual who read, led protests against the dictatorship.

So certainly, he was not poor, he was not very much ordinary, but he was, as most people have described him, something of a troublemaker. He liked women, he liked guns, he was described as a troubled son of privilege. But he eventually became a lawyer, he went to school, in part, in Manila, and did get into some trouble there.

He admits to having shot a frat friend in the hallways of his old school. He was still allowed to graduate. They thought it would be a failure of the system if someone so promising were kept away from becoming a lawyer. So he became one. When he went back to Davao City, he worked in the prosecutor's office. According to some sources, with some pull from his mother to his father's friends.

And then the revolution happened in 1986. Corazon Aquino became president after the dictator, the martial law dictatorship. And across the country, people were being put in as officers in charge of cities. Because an election would come in the aftermath of the revolution. They wanted, as vice mayor for Davao City, where Rodrigo Duterte comes from, his mother. Soledad Duterte, but she said she would prefer it was her son who sat in office. So Rodrigo Duterte became vice mayor of Davao City on the heels of the revolution, of the peaceful revolution that overthrew a dictator. And he said he supported that revolution. After that, he ran as mayor. He won and ran again and again and again.

More than two decades of Duterte leadership in Davao that included his sons and his daughters. Until now, actually, the mayor of Davao is also a Duterte. But while all this was happening, Davao was notorious for being a hotbed of communism and crime. That people would be killed on the streets randomly.

The right-wing rose, vigilante groups, and Duterte allegedly, again, supported these vigilante groups that took down the communists. When the communists, when the communist threat lessened in the '90s. A new threat rose. They call it the Davao Death Squad.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah. Patricia, do you mind if I just pause here for a second because there's a lot of detail that you bring in the book about this period in particular.

So first of all, about the sort of the communist groups in Davao. As you write, and this is important to understand, because it really lays the groundwork for what happens later. Yes, there were these vigilante murders essentially, death squads that were organized to purge what was described as a communist insurgency in Davao, but you point out in the book that action was — and please correct me if I'm wrong, but supported by then President Corazon Aquino and the United States?

EVANGELISTA: Yes. The answer, according to Corazon Aquino, to violence from the communists, is the sword of war. At that time, it was supported by Corazon Aquino, it was supported by the U.S. State Department. We were friends with America, and so across the country, this sort of violence was supported. In fact, one of the vigilante groups in Davao City, one of the more violent ones, called the Alsa Masa, the masses arise, was cutting quite a swath in Davao, and Corazon Aquino went to Davao City and said she would, was proud to be standing in the birthplace of the Alsa Masa.

CHAKRABARTI: They were so effective that the so-called communist threat was reduced. But as you said, then under Duterte's mayoral rule of Davao, there emerges a group called the Davao Death Squad. And reporters at the time wrote, and you quote them in the book, that the repertoire of warfare drawn from both military counterinsurgency as well as communist guerrilla methods and practice was perfected during the dictatorship and proved equally effective in a democracy.

And Duterte himself said, I don't mind us being called the murder capital of the Philippines, as long as those being killed are the bad guys. From day one, I said henceforth, Davao will be very dangerous for criminals. It's a place where you can die any time. Now, the extent of how these death squads operated.

Did he ever once admit that there was a direct connection between him and the actions of the Davao Death Squad?

EVANGELISTA: Rodrigo Duterte says a lot of things. Sometimes he will say, "I am the death squad." Sometimes he'll say, "I have guilt." Under oath, he says, I don't know of any Davao Death Squad. I'm not responsible for a so-called Davao Death Squad.

Perhaps it's the gangs, perhaps it's the criminals. Many things have been said about his responsibility. Certainly, he denies it, that he had anything to do with it. And then when he does say, he does threaten. He says it's a mere rhetoric. He said very often in Davao, as you just quoted, exactly, what he also says to the rest of the country.

If you break the law, if you commit crimes, if you are a danger to the children, my city, my country, I will kill you. That is not a rare thing for him to say. So the death squads, as far as we can tell with investigations, as well as whistleblowers, was composed of former Sparrow Units from communist groups.

Sparrows are assassins, assassin teams working with the communists. They also included former members of the Alsa Masa or other vigilante groups. And they also included former or current police officers.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, regarding the former or current police officers that were in these death squads in Davao.

You tell the story of Arturo Lascañas, who was the police master sergeant in Davao. Duterte's right hand man there denied any complicity in the violence that was happening there, but had a massive 'come to Jesus moment,' is how you call it, in February 2017, where he gave a press conference, and then thereafter admitted to killing after killing after killing, in detail.

And would you tell us the story of one of the descriptions he gave of people he was told he and his group were told to root out and kill. It was about a group of Chinese drug dealers.

EVANGELISTA: Right. You're right that it was a 'come to Jesus moment.' It was a pretty literal come to Jesus moment. He had a nightmare, he was sick, and then he dreamt of Jesus and woke up and he changed.

Arturo Lascañas was allegedly Duterte's right hand man, at least when it came to the Davao Death Squads. And he had a number of stories to tell in the aftermath of deciding to be a whistleblower. He said that he was asked to kill eleven Chinese drug dealers. He only killed nine because he assigned two to someone else.

He was also asked to kill a kidnapper, except when they stopped the van that was carrying the kidnapper, the alleged kidnapper. He was there with his wife, with his son, and with his father-in-law, and with his household help. Allegedly, he and the other member of the death squad had gone to the mayor at that time, Mayor Duterte, and said, "What do we do?"

And the suggestion of the other person was, "Erase them." So they were erased. They were killed. And Lascañas stood outside the door. And listened to them shot. He had tried to make a case for the young boy to be allowed to live, but he lost the argument. So he listened, as they were all killed and then the bodies were buried, and he came back a few days later and poured oil over the dead.

And one of them, as you said, was a four-year-old boy. And you write that their wallets, bags, and a pair of children's shoes were also burned. There's much more to discuss, to understand not only why all this happened in the Philippines, but the long-term impact on the Filipino people as well. So we'll talk about that in just a moment.

CHAKRABARTI:  I want to play a little bit more of what Duterte himself has said in the past Patricia, if I may. He has actually admitted to killing people himself. So this is from a 2015 interview that he did with Maria Ressa, whom I mentioned earlier was one of the co-founders of the Filipino news site, Rappler.

And at the time, Duterte was the mayor of Davao City, as we have been talking about. And he said quite clearly to Maria that he believed criminals have no redeeming reason to live.

DUTERTE: There's no redeeming factor in killing people, robbing them, raping them, robbing them, and.

RESSA: So no qualms about killing killers?

DUTERTE: Yes, of course. I must admit that I have killed. Three months early on I killed about three people.

CHAKRABARTI: Patricia, in your book you write about how Duterte is very specific about not just saying I have killed, but I have killed people. You write that he's very particular about using that noun. What does that tell you?

EVANGELISTA: Rodrigo Duterte is careful with language, even as he is very verbose with language. It's not so much the use of people or the use of kill. He doesn't like to use the word murder. For him, or he claims, murder means killing a bound man or killing a man on his knees begging for his life. That's why he denies that any extrajudicial killings happened during his term.

He denies that he supports murder. He supports killing, to kill legally. He says they will have to perish. He will say they will have to be wiped off the face of the earth. He would say I would like to do it myself, shove them out of helicopters, let them drown in a ship in the Pacific, hang them with barbed wire.

But he would tell his police in public. You don't have to kill illegally, because you can kill legally. And he says, I declared a war. What is wrong with that? He says, what is wrong with saying, [Translation] I will kill for my country. His claim is that killing is justified because these are not people.

CHAKRABARTI: And he's completely unapologetic about it. Every bit of concern that anyone within the Philippines or in the international community raised about human rights violations, he overtly said he didn't care. For example, here is an interview that he did with Al Jazeera English about 100 days into his presidency.

So he's now the leader of the entire nation. And this is in 2016. And he claimed that the Philippines had millions of drug addicts and said that he could not help it if vigilantes basically sometimes took justice into their own hands. And he also said, as I mentioned, he did not care about human rights.

DUTERTE: You destroy my country. I'll kill you. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement. There is nothing wrong in trying to preserve the interest of the next generation. The three million addicts, they are not residents of one compact area or contiguous place. They're spread all over the country. I do not care about what the human rights guys say, I have to strike fear. I have a duty to preserve the generation.

CHAKRABARTI: Patricia, I feel it's important to emphasize to our audience here, that's mostly in the United States, I'm gonna say it again and again, because you say it in the book.

This all happened in a democracy. The Philippines isn't some far off nation across the ocean.

EVANGELISTA: Oh, no, we're not.

CHAKRABARTI: It is a nation that the United States has had a long involvement with, first and foremost. Whose original constitution was modeled after the United States Constitution.

Filipino people, work around the world. So this isn't something that just happens over there.

EVANGELISTA: No, it's not.

CHAKRABARTI: So what I want to know is while we are focusing on Duterte and his overt blood lust as the strategy to manage a so-called war on terror, as you said earlier, not all of the killings were done by police.

Some of them were done by vigilantes. You told us the story about the neighborhood that voted, right? To identify someone as needing killing, quote-unquote. Something is also going on with the people of the Philippines that allows the, essentially, the blood to spread across the country. And I think, to be frank, it's hard for me to understand how that happened again in a democracy, that people embraced, enough of them embraced the idea of extrajudicial killings.

It's not just wanting vengeance against drug dealers. It's a vengeance happening completely outside a moral or legal framework. How did that happen?

EVANGELISTA: The Philippines is not an exotic country. What happened there is happening everywhere else in the world. And it's easy to dismiss the words of a campaigning strongman as just rhetoric, but we can't afford to.

And it's a lesson we learned, that when strongmen promise to kill, they mean it. When they say they will suppress the press, they mean it. When they demean women, they mean it. And when they use words to threaten, they will act on those words when they have power. And, but what I want to emphasize is it's not a strange thing that it happened in the Philippines.

There are charismatic men all over the world who will make promises, say outrageous things and glory in the crowds they draw. And sometimes what they say is dangerous. But not dangerous enough. Take back the border. Make the country great again. Protect the children. Then the dial turns just a little bit, and then they say more dangerous things.

Maybe they'll say kill the drug addicts, or kill the activists, or kill the journalists. Maybe it's kill the shoplifters, shoot the migrants, the election workers, the judges. That's what happens. The terrible dust became ordinary, it's happening everywhere. And the Philippines? We're just a cautionary tale for places in the world where a politician is charismatic enough to blow a dog whistle and say, some people need killing.

But it's not a rare thing. You just have to stand on the line every time and say, it shouldn't happen here.

CHAKRABARTI: Here's an example, much closer to home.

DONALD TRUMP [TAPE]: These people are killing people when they go into the stores. You'll have 300 young people who are not looking for a good future, walk into a store, big department store, and just pillage it.

And if you happen to be there when they're there, they'll knock the hell out of you and kill you in some cases. And we will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.

CHAKRABARTI: Donald Trump in California in 2023. But Patricia, I want to emphasize something. Many Americans, even some still in the media will say, "That's just campaign rhetoric. He doesn't really mean it. Don't take it seriously. It's what you say as a charismatic campaigner.

Don't take it seriously."

EVANGELISTA: There are many words for that. Don't take him literally. It's just imaginative language. It is just rhetoric. It is too dangerous not to take seriously. And even if he wasn't serious at that time, it is what the people want to hear. And then he will be forced to do it. Once he is in power, or he will feel that it is important to do this because it is what the nation wants.

Regardless, even the act of saying it matters. To say some people need killing does turn the dial, does reduce a drug addict or a drug dealer, or a shoplifter or an immigrant to less than a human being. So I think the lesson we take from my country, the lesson we take every day is that sometimes wars aren't just metaphorical.

CHAKRABARTI: You write in the book, speaking of your country, that there came a time where you felt like you could no longer recognize it. Can you tell me what you meant by that?

EVANGELISTA: I have been a trauma journalist for 15 years. I do not traffic in hope. And I have reported on many terrible things, massacres, disasters, events with death tolls of 6,000.

So it does not shock me. Blood on the ground does not shock me. Brutality does not shock me. What surprised me with the drug war was not so much the blood. It was the fact it was applauded. Whenever I covered massacres or traumatic events, my job was to tell the story, investigate what happened, point a finger, if a finger is supposed to be pointed, and then move on to the next story while people at home will say, will read the story, will watch the news and say, what a terrible thing.

After Duterte was elected, it seemed like it was a sea change. What a terrible thing became what a beautiful thing. On the day, 32 men were killed by police in a 24-hour period in a single city, Rodrigo Duterte sauntered up to a podium and said, What a beautiful thing, more should die. That was what I couldn't recognize anymore.

Not that terrible things were happening, but these things were good. And that, as a journalist, my choice to cover these stories was not just a choice of any journalist. Suddenly, it had to become resistance. To choose it was already resistance. I was not comfortable with it. I didn't understand that the democracy I understood was not the democracy some of my fellow citizens saw.

And I see it very differently now. It's not that I was alone in covering the war. It's not like I was alone outraged by what was happening. There were many people, many survivors, many activists, many lawyers, many journalists who stood up and some of whom paid quite a high price for standing up.

So my thought right now is it's still my country. And I'm going back on the field. That's the job.

CHAKRABARTI: It is so clear in listening to you that you still possess, even though you say you may not be able to recognize, the country that you love, that you still love your country, that you still love your people. So it must be akin to a kind of profound heartbreak to not be able to recognize the country and people that you love so.

EVANGELISTA: I think through the four, the seven years of the war and the four years of writing the book I have understood my people better. And certainly, I don't subscribe to thinking that this is the choice to vote for Duterte was an inane thing, that it came out of nowhere or people are fundamentally violent or destructive.

People voted for Duterte for many reasons. Some people just felt, some people were hungry, some people felt the predation of many years. Some people didn't believe that he would kill people. Some people just wanted better. It was many reasons for many people that cannot be reduced to a single choice for death.

But what I also understand is that it matters how you tell the story. He told a good story, a powerful story, and he was a phenomenal storyteller. So all of us who maybe think different or maybe want to tell a different story. The value is keeping a record I don't believe in many things and I don't have a lot of expectations with anything.

I don't think telling one story as a single journalist changes many things, but I do believe in telling it just myself just keeping my own record.

CHAKRABARTI: Patricia. We're approaching the end of the hour, unfortunately, but I want to applaud you profoundly for your dedication and your bravery. And I recognize clearly the responsibilities you feel as a journalist.

When you said earlier, it's not your job to feel anything at the moment, but to report the facts. But can you take a second as we wrap up this conversation? I have to ask, doing this reporting has had to have an effect on you. What effect has that been?

EVANGELISTA: It would be difficult to describe it as you have told me I'm not allowed profanity in this interview.

But I will try to work around that. The trouble with doing what we do is that we're not cameras. We do not shoot, then print, then delete after. You keep all the stories with you. And every time you tell it, you walk into the room again, and then you hear the crack of the bullet, even if you were never there to begin with.

I think it's a matter of just taking it day by day, and telling the story as well as I can. And hope that every time, I have honored the people who had the bravery to tell me theirs. They're taking more risks than I have. And I hope to have done justice to them.

This program aired on March 5, 2024.

• Long-jailed former Philippine senator who fought drug crackdown is granted bail
• How one reporter tells the story of Philippines President Duterte's drug war
• Jailed under Duterte, Philippine politician sends dire warnings on democracy
• Patricia Evangelista's memoir revisits the aftermath of the Philippines' war on drugs : NPR's Book of the Day

Claire Donnelly Producer, On Point Claire Donnelly is a producer at On Point.

Meghna Chakrabarti Host, On Point Meghna Chakrabarti is the host of On Point.

Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines

This country spotlight refers to data published in 2019. For the most recent data, go to our Rights Tracker .

‘War on drugs’ is a denial of the right to life

Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte in June 2016, a violent ‘war on drugs’ has claimed upwards of 5,000 lives in the Philippines. Executions by police and militia groups that target drug dealers and users not only exacerbate the drug problem but constitute a violation of the right to freedom from execution by extrajudicial killing.

On July 1st 2016, Oliver Dela Cruz was shot to death in Bulacan province during a police sting operation. He was playing cards at a friend’s house when a group of armed men broke in, interrogated and executed him. Police denied any responsibility, blaming vigilante violence.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Philippines has signed, recognises the right to life. The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 1987, and the country signed the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, becoming part of the global movement against the death penalty.

Under the ICCPR, the right to be free from execution also covers arbitrary and extrajudicial killing. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative tracks the performance of countries around the world on upholding these rights.

The killings of Mr Dela Cruz and thousands of others are a denial of the right to life, the right to freedom from execution.

While the current administration is not directly responsible for the authorisation of these extra-judicial executions, Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings, blamed Duterte’s hard-line approach and rhetoric for exacerbating the violence and denounced the lack of investigation into the killings.

Police and militia groups are not being held to account for their actions. This is a rejection of the government’s obligation to investigate violations of the right to life and the right to freedom from extrajudicial killing.

The right to freedom from execution

According to international law, the right to be free from execution includes freedom from any arbitrary or extrajudicial deprivation of life, as well as freedom from the death penalty even with due process of law (ICCPR, Part III, Article 6; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, Article 1).

This is a fundamental human right that must be respected and governments are legally obligated to do what they can to prevent such killings and hold those responsible to account.

HRMI’s Civil and Political Rights data collection

In 2019, we collected information on civil and political rights in 19 survey countries via a secure online expert opinion survey  (please note this is a link to a preview of the survey only, and any responses you make will not be collected).

These countries were selected based on the following two criteria:

• Sufficient interest from human rights experts in that country for inclusion (so that we could be sure to have sufficient numbers of survey respondents and active engagement during the survey).
• A sub-set of 19 countries that offered diversity of sizes, regions, cultures, income levels, degree of openness etc (so that we could learn how well our survey methodology worked in different contexts).

The graph below shows how the 19 countries in the HRMI survey performed on freedom from execution.

It seems likely that the Philippines would perform poorly relative to the survey countries, due to the number of unlawful executions carried out since 2016, but without data it is harder for human rights defenders to do their work and hold governments to account.

As soon as funding allows, we will extend our civil and political rights data collection to the Philippines and the rest of the world, and expand our full set of data to measure other rights protected by international law.

If you want to help fund our expansion to the Philippines, and all countries in the world, please contact us .

Who can use these data?

All of HRMI’s data are freely available to anyone. You can  explore our data site here , and even download the dataset.

We have data on seven  civil and political rights : as well as  five economic and social rights .

HRMI aims to produce  useful  data. Some of the people we expect will use our data are:

• Journalists, especially those reporting a particular country, and those focusing on human rights, politics, social issues or international affairs
• Researchers
• Government policy advisers
• Human rights advocates
• Human rights monitors within a region, and at the international level
• Companies, for decision-making, to minimise risk for investors, and direct capital flows ethically.

If you know anyone in those categories, please let them know about HRMI, in case our data can be useful to them.

HRMI’s data have been available for only a few months so far, but as different people use them, we want to share stories and case studies. Whenever you see our data in action, please tell us, and we’ll include a link on our website.

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Extrajudicial Killing and the State in the Philippines: An Epidemiology of Violence

Extrajudicial killing (EJK) is a relatively recent concept located at the intersection of human rights, criminology and the sociology of law. It is defined as state-killing outside of the formal legal system of a state without due process of law. As a residual category it relies heavily on the definition of what a 'state' is and thus a theory of the state. A key feature of EJK is a denial of state involvement in killing necessitated by EJK's constituting state crime in which the state violates its own self-defined rules for operation. The specific focus of this study is how state 'frames' are used in speeches and political communication to promote state-killing while denying any state connection to that killing. EJK is seen to occur in coordinated waves of violence (cycles of violence) that resemble the trajectory of infectious diseases in epidemics that are influenced by the frames put forth by the state and watchdog institutions in 'cycles of moral reaction'. This case study focuses on EJK in the Philippines which has played a key defining role in EJK internationally, specifically on police encounter shootings and death squad killings during the 'War on Drugs' that began in 2016.

Related Papers

Philippine Sociological Review

Jon Fernquest

This article explores the cyclical nature of violence in the Philippine War on Drugs, with the aim of charting potential paths out of this violence. With a focus on how media framings of violence can help bring violence to an end, the article proposes a cycle of violence paradigm to explain how violence progresses in three stages: mass public socialization into violence via violent political rhetoric, a process of state denial that sustains the violence, and finally, public socialization out of violence through an effective response by media, communities, and civil society (i.e., human rights activists, academics, churches) at the national level. State strategies of denial, coupled with a lack of transparency in security force operations (i.e., police, military, militia), help perpetuate the violence. Amid a cycle of violence, the deaths of innocent individuals can lead to increased media coverage, public discourse and awareness, which in turn, leads to public identification with the victim and fear for the safety of one's own community and family. As case studies, a comparative narrative analysis is performed of two killings that led to mass public engagement at the national level, namely that of the Filipino teenager Kian delos Santos and the Korean expat businessman Jee Ick Joo.

Asian Journal of Law and Society

This article focuses on the war on drugs in the Philippines in order to explore issues related to extra-judicial killing, which remains common in many countries that have abolished the death penalty and in many more that retain it but seldom carry out judicial executions. In the first year of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency (2016–17), thousands of people were killed by police or by vigilantes who were encouraged to prosecute his war on drugs. At a time when democracy is in retreat in many parts of the world, this case illustrates how popular harsh punishment can be in states that have failed to meet their citizens’ hopes for freedom, economic growth, and security.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

bungayang elok

Outside, Looking In

Jessica Racquel P . Santillan

The cases of murdered drug addicts, drug users, and drug dealers in the Philippines show staggering numbers ever since President Rodrigo Duterte came into office on 2016 June 30. The international media have closely followed the events following Duterte’s win, and his campaign against drugs in the country. Various human rights groups have criticized and openly condemned the drug-related extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, but the Duterte administration continues to be defiant and justifies its anti-drug war. A total of 64 articles published online in The New York Times and The Japan Times were analyzed from the period of 2016 June 30 until 2017 June 30, a complete year from his Duterte’s first day in office. The prime objective of this research study is to discover how the international press frames the extrajudicial killings linked to President Duterte’s anti-drug war, and if these frames perpetuate categorical stereotypes of a colonized country.

Revista Neiba, Cadernos Argentina Brasil

Gabriel Brasilino

Cheryll Ruth Soriano

News media’s construction of crime and drugs can shape and change public perceptions and influence popular acceptance of policy and state responses. In this way, media, through selection of sources and framing of narratives, act as important agents of social control, either independently or indirectly by state actors. This article examines how the Philippine government’s anti-drug campaign, and the thousands of deaths resulting from them, has been depicted by the media to the public. We conducted a discourse analysis of television news stories to extract dominant frames and narratives, finding a pattern of over-privileging of State authority as a source, resulting in a monolithic message of justifying the killing of suspects. Furthermore, the ‘event-focused’ slant, which dominates the character of reports by media, inevitably solidifies the narrative that the deaths are a necessary consequence of a national public safety campaign. By relying almost exclusively on this narrative, to ...

Journal of Contemporary Asia

Peter Kreuzer

Fatima Pinto

Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president, the Philippines have been engulfed in a vicious campaign against drug-related crime. More than 1,500 suspects have been killed by police officers in so-called legitimate encounters. An analysis of past patterns of killings by police shows that there are widespread, if less conspicuous, antecedents to the current spate of police-perpetrated vigilante justice. In the past and now, the differences between provinces and regions are attributable to the attitudes of officials in power at the local level. The pressure exerted on local officials by the current national administration reduces their options for resisting the invitation to carry out acts of vigilante justice. The current patterns of strongman rule also exhibit disturbing similarities to the ones used by Ferdinand Marcos before the declaration of martial law in 1972 (and should be seen as an ominous portent of what lies ahead). The text not only provides a detailed analysis of current patterns, but presents also new data on the lethality of "legitimate encounters" for a number of Philippine regions and provinces for the past decade. It also compares the Philippine data with those of selected other countries at the national or sub-national level (from England and Wales over the United States to South Africa, Brasil and Rio de Janeiro). https://www.hsfk.de/fileadmin/HSFK/hsfk_publikationen/prif142.pdf

Dr. Danilo A Reyes

This article argues that, in Duterte’s “war on drugs”, state power is exercised through the body in a spectacle of humiliation and violence. The analysis draws from the work of Foucault (1979) on the political value of a spectacle of the body to explain the distinctive character of Duterte’s violent war on drugs; of Feldman (1991) on the use of the body as an object in which violence is embodied to send political messages; of Agamben (1995) on eliminating life supposedly devoid of value; and on Mumford et al. (2007), who pointed to the popularity of “violent ideological leaders.” I argue that, under the Duterte administration, criminals are humiliated and killed in a spectacle of violence that politicises their lives, sending a message that intimidates others. In the process, law-abiding citizens are meant to feel safe, which is seen as likely to increase the newly elected president’s popularity and his power as chief executive. Duterte has thereby politicised life, not only putting criminals outside the benefit of state protection but actively targeting them. Duterte is the first mayor and president to have actively targeted criminals and, in doing so has encouraged other politicians to follow his example. The politicisation of the bodies of criminals is distinctive in Duterte’s form of violence. This article is drawn from data sets of individual killings when Duterte was either serving as or acting behind the mayor of Davao, and compared with cases of drug-related killings since he became president on 30 June 2016.

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Killing for whom? Extrajudicial killing cases in the Philippines

Jung, bub mo.

Since Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016, extrajudicial killings have taken more than 5000 lives. The targets and pattern of extrajudicial killings during his presidency may have been different from those during the Marco dictatorship. Yet it is also important to note that during the relatively stable period of Philippine democracy in 2001-2010, we witnessed a number of extrajudicial killings in everyday life in the Philippines.

A number of journalists, elected government officials, and leaders of peasant groups were shot dead on the streets by unidentified motorcyclists even in broad daylight. An exact count of these extrajudicial killings is not possible because armed conflicts related with communist and Islamic liberation movements are still ongoing. Though estimates on the number of incidents may vary, a rather conservative count suggests during the period 2001-2010, there were 305 incidents of extrajudicial killings with 390 victims, 1 while Karapatan, a human rights watch group, suggest the figure is over 1,000 for the same period. Only 161 of these incidents were filed with prosecutors. To many people’s dismay, very few perpetrators were brought to justice.

Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines

Extrajudicial killings, according to the Supreme Court Administrative Order, are defined by law as killings due to the political affiliation of the victims, the method of attack, and the involvement or acquiescence of stage agents in the commission of the killing.

The public and civil society in the Philippines might interpret the situation as a breakdown of state control over military groups or a culture of impunity. And although there is widespread concern in some circles with the mounting extrajudicial killings, the Armed Force of the Philippines seems unconcerned.

Since those targeted are varied and exact numbers are vague, this means that getting to the bottom of the assassinations is challenging. In addition, it is even more difficult to find out why certain non-militant and peasant leaders, as well as community development-oriented NGO workers or environmentalists, were brutally murdered. So far, few questions have been asked about the nature of their ‘threat’ to the local communities and the national political economy.

Based on the executions of two local leaders, we will examine the circumstances of their killings and their involvement with international development projects. International development is often a murky area in the Philippines. These projects — often cash-rich — are frequently tainted with corrupt connections and dodgy dealings between politicians and the local elites. This is exacerbated when economic oriented development agencies often pressure a recipient country to fast-track the proper implementation processes.

The case of Jose Doton

Until the day of his killing, he was leading the struggle against the San Roque Dam, raising the issue of the mega dam’s adverse effects on people’s livelihoods and resources. The construction of the San Roque Dam would displace 660 families in his town. Furthermore, in Itogon in Benguet Province, around 20,000 indigenous peoples were adversely affected by the operation. During the press conference on June 15, 2006, Hozue Hatae, from Friends of the Earth-Japan, which was involved in monitoring the Japanese-funded project, stated that “in projects funded by the Japanese government and financial institutions, our organization has continuously paid attention on HRVs (human right violations) at the local level.” It is said that the people who are against the projects are often labeled as leftists and communist terrorists by the authorities. TIMMAWA had been identified by the authorities as a front for communist terrorists in the area.

The San Roque Multi-purpose Project (SRMP) is built on the lower Agno River of Pangasinan Province in northern Luzon to generate power for diverse economic activities as well as to improve water quality by reducing downstream siltation and flooding (Perez, 2004; SRPC, 2006, cited in Kim 2010 3 : 629). The project can be traced back to several controversial dam projects in the Cordillera area, some that are yet to start operation. At the same time, there has been a long struggle against projects from indigenous groups.

Unlike most extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, it was fortunate Jose Doton’s case got national and international attention, and the case was investigated by the authorities. There was another case of killing which also triggered the international attention in recent years.

The case of Romeo Capalla

At around 6:30 p.m. on March 15, 2014, Romeo Capalla, aged 65, was gunned down near the public market of Oton town in Iloilo city by unidentified gunmen on four motorcycles. He was helping his 90-year old mother-in-law board his car when he was shot. Capalla was the founding member of the Panay chapter of Samahan ng mga Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA), being a political detainee during the Martial Law in 1970s. That was the time when he was involved in the underground movement against the dictatorship.

He started working for Panay Fair Trade Center (PFTC) in 1994 as a worker, and throughout the years he climbed the ranks to became its manager. 6 The PFTC produces and sells natural and organic products for local and international markets. It buys organic muscovado sugar and bananas at premium prices from farmers and exports these to fair trade organizations in Europe and Asia.

On May 23, according to a report from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Philippine National Police, stated that Capalla was killed by the breakaway Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB). It detailed how the killing was allegedly in “retaliation” to the gunning down of RPA-ABB leader Demetrio Capilastique, who was killed by the NPA (New People’s Army).

According to the left group, NDF (National Democratic Front) Panay spokesperson Concha Araneta, the Philippine Army’s Third Infantry Division and the Military Intelligence Battalion was behind the attacks, and a Third ID Commander Major, General Aurelio Balada was a key person in charge. 10 It is said that such units are maintained for such “dirty jobs” against people’s organization and personalities.

Why the killings?

The two cases above show several common elements in political killings in the Philippines. At first, community leaders were eliminated by the para-military group which is allegedly backed up by the government authorities. Secondly, the resistance or community based movement were seen as hindrances or obstacles by some authorities. Thirdly, internationally related resistance or people’s movements aroused concerns with the cases and applied pressure to Philippine government.

However, the main question should be why these persons became targets and to whom these persons were considered a threat? In addition, how the para-military groups have accumulated so much power to commit these killings?

In case of the San Roque dam, the national government and authorities and related business sector would be main beneficiaries of the development project, and the concerns of ordinary people tend to be neglected. The marginalized sector’s demand for its rights is often not recognized, and instead they are labeled as ‘anti-development’ group or leftist. At the case of PFTC leaders, the change in the local economy which had depended on traditional and feudal labor relation for plantation production might threaten the local elite. Again, the workers-oriented production was labeled as a “leftist” movement. Thus, the vested groups have often tried to equate peoples’ movements with armed struggles. In the international arena, government anti-terror measures are supported by foreign countries like U.S. and Australia in the name of keeping peace. The OPLAN policy of the Philippine government has been criticized by civil societies, since it helps local elites enlarge their power into security measures and greaten their negotiation power with central government.

Jung, Bub Mo Seoul National University Asia Center

• Parreno, Al A. 2011, Report on the Philippine Extrajudicial Killings (2001-August 2010), Manila: Asia Foundation.The inconsistencies in numbers might be caused by how extrajudicial killings are defined or whether ‘disappeared people’ are included in statistics. ↩
• From the blog site of PIPLinks(Indigenous Peoples Links), the execution summary was prepared by the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mining4dpeople/conversations/messages/135 (Accessed on 12 March 2016). ↩
• Kim, Soyeun 2010 “Greening the Dam: The case of the San Roque Multi-purpose Project in the Philippines” Geoforum Vol. 41(4) pp. 627-637. ↩
• Amnesty International Dec 8 Japan 2006 Joint Press Release by Japanese NGOs concerning increased political killings in the Philippines. http://www.amnesty.or.jp/en/news/2006/1208_604.html (Accessed on 12 March 2016). ↩
• Bulatlat Dec. 24-30 (Vol. VI. No. 46) http://www.bulatlat.com/news/6-46/6-46-aid.htm (Accessed on 12 March 2016). ↩
• JJustice for Romeo Capalla! Stop the Killings and End Impunity  https://www.change.org/p/person-justice-for-romeo-capalla-stop-the-killings-and-end-impunity (accessed on 14 March 2016) ↩
• Inquirer, 21 March 2014 http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/587601/intl-trade-groups-condemn-killing-of-capalla (Accessed on 14 March 2016). ↩
• Human rights group decries case dismissal against suspect of killing a Fair Trade advocate 5 September 2014 http://wfto.com/news/human-rights-group-decries-case-dismissal-against-suspect-killing-fair-trade-advocate  (Accessed on 14 March 2016) ↩
• http://www.karapatan.org/UA-19Mar2014-EJK-Romeo-Capalla (Accessed on 15 March 2016) ↩
• Davao Today Mar 24, 2014 http://davaotoday.com/main/human-rights/bishop-cries-justice-groups-slam-military-brothers-slay/ (Accessed on 12 March 2016). ↩

Copyright © 2023 | Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia | All Rights Reserved

Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines: Is the situation really improving?

By CAROLYN MERCADO

A ROBBERY suspect lies naked and writhing on the cement floor of a Manila police precinct with his genitals bound while a plainclothes policeman pulls a rope and whips him. All the while a uniformed officer stood by and watched. The torture was recorded on video via a mobile phone and was leaked to the internet and aired over the biggest television station in the country on Aug. 17, 2010. The identity of the torture victim was never known as his body was never recovered, though several families claim the man to be a relative based on his physical appearance in the video. The policemen involved who were then suspects for the crime were immediately relieved, but just one year after, they were seen reporting back to work, while an indictment by the justice department was issued only a month ago.

In another case, the provincial coordinator of the party list group Bayan Muna was leaving home to take his 12-year-old son to school on July 5, 2010, in Leno, Aklan, when a gunman shot and killed him and then fled on a motorcycle. An arrest warrant was issued by a regional trial court against the alleged perpetrator, but the Philippine National Police has not served it due to the legal machinations of the accused – consisting of several motions for reconsideration and a motion to hold in abeyance the service of the warrant of arrest. Thus, the accused remains at-large.

After a clash with the New People’s Army in late August 2010 and on Sept. 1, 2010, in a barangay in Surigao del Sur, soldiers conducted a massive military operation in the area that forced the community to evacuate to a safer place. In the course of the military operation, two farmers went missing. Despite extensive efforts by the community to search for the two disappeared, the farmers haven’t been seen since.

One would think that these incidents happened in a country ruled by a dictatorship. But they all took place in the Philippines, a democracy. Despite the advent of a new and popular administration and President Aquino’s promise to end all human rights violations, the country has not seen the last of them. Torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances continue with impunity. They continue to be widespread and systematic, with most victims tagged as “enemies of the state” and the majority of the suspects identified as state security forces. In a span of one year, the current administration has recorded three torture cases, 27 extrajudicial killings, four enforced disappearances, and six journalist killings – totaling around 37 cumulative violations (compared to around 57 average violations per year during the time of President Macapagal Arroyo). While this is an improvement, the perpetrators still enjoy widespread impunity – a troubling reality that signals more remains to be done.

Of the more than 1,000 extrajudicial killings (including journalist killings) recorded by the Commission on Human Rights since 2001, only seven resulted in conviction, not one of whom is a military or police personnel. Lackluster efforts to investigate and prosecute serious human rights violations cases, particularly when evidence points to military or police involvement, hinder the proper disposition of cases despite Herculean efforts made by victims’ families to pursue justice in the courts. Successful conviction of perpetrators is also hindered by an inadequate witness protection program which makes witnesses shy away from testifying in court. This is exacerbated by the over-reliance on witness testimony, as forensic evidence is still a nascent science in the Philippines. Age-old problems in the criminal justice system are exacerbated in human rights cases as delays lead to the continuous harassment of victims, forcing them to drop cases for fear of retribution. Lack of a friendly legal environment, particularly the absence of laws penalizing extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, has made it easier for perpetrators to enjoy widespread impunity. Abusive behavior by state security forces persists because no one has gone to jail.

The Asia Foundation, through its Strengthening Human Rights in the Philippines Program, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has produced and published a powerful set of books that candidly discuss the issues and problems surrounding human rights violations in the Philippines and at the same time proffer suggestions to end the culture of impunity. The  Report on the Philippine Extrajudicial Killings (2001-August 2010) , by Al A. Parreno, provides six requirements needed to curtail impunity:

• An active Commission on Human Rights to review the cases and support investigation;
• An aggressive commander in chief to openly recognize this as a problem and push for its eradication;
• An awareness campaign led by civil society and the press;
• Relentless Philippine National Police (PNP) passionate with gathering evidence;
• Proactive prosecution service; and
• An impartial tribunal within the PNP, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, an unbiased Department of Justice, and incorruptible special courts.

The  Prosecution of Torture: A Manual  by Atty. Eric Mallonga is an academic blueprint in the legal construct for prosecutors, both public and private, to identify torture and a pattern of action in effectively building a case for prosecution. It provides guidelines, accompanied by sample templates, for the immediate and effective documentation and marshaling of evidence in torture cases.

The photo book of Vera Files,  Silenced: Extrajudicial Killings and Torture in the Philippines , is a collection of photo essays by Mario Ignacio IV. It contains the stories of 14 cases of extrajudicial killings and torture that took place in different parts of the country, from Ilocos Norte to Basilan, mostly during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The photo book presents powerful images of victims and those whom they left behind as they continue their search for justice.

Curtailing human rights violations and ending impunity clearly requires more than knowledge products such as these books. However, it is our hope that these publications can help policy-makers adopt effective measures in ending torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances; aid prosecutors in case build-up to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable; and prevent these violations from recurring.

( This article first appeared in the website of The Asia Foundation . Carolyn Mercado directs the foundation’s Law and Human Rights program in the Philippines. The views and opinions expressed in the article are hers and not those of The Asia Foundation .)

Read other interesting stories:

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Pagpapalaya kay De Lima, isyu ng tama at mali

VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Pahayag ng Surigao congressman na ‘hindi kailanman’ nag-utos si Duterte na patayin ang mga tulak ng droga HINDI TOTOO

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Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines Essay Example

• Pages: 2 (435 words)
• Published: November 18, 2017
• Type: Article

Extrajudicial killing is the political issue in the Philippines that the group chose. Extrajudicial killing is defined as the execution of a person or group of persons by state agents without due process of the law. The group chose a video presentation as the medium in order to cope up with modern times. The students would portray a certain situation in which extra judicial killing is exhibited. They chose this issue because it has been reigning in the

Philippines for such a long time that it has been embedded in the daily lives of the Filipino people. Extrajudicial killings became a way to silence people who are against the government. This problem led to severe graft and corruption because the check and balance cannot be conducted for the people who speak or know about It are silenced or abducted. W

hen you look at the government and Its citizens and see the different policies that are implemented and obeyed, you see the reason why or why not a country Is flourishing, this is the institutional theory approach.

The group views this political issue as institutional because In order to keep its citizens under its command, they would silence those who have Information that may disrupt the peace and stability. Hence, it became embedded In the culture so as they became accustomed to eliminating antagonists of the government In a snap. On that note, the group saw the problem in a cultural theory approach as well because It Isolates a particular value or tradition of people that whenever someone Is contesting your opinion, you have to dispose of them.

The group understood the difference between extr

judicial killings and political killings. Many people think that these two words mean the same but actually, these words are similar but not exactly synonymous. It can be said that almost all extra judicial killings are driven by political motive or agenda while political killings do not always have political agendas Influencing It. The class In which the video Is presented Is expected to differentiate the meaning of extra judicial and political killings.

The group also hopes to shed some light on taboo epic and why It Is considered as a political Issue that everyone should be aware of. Extrajudicial killings, though had been denied, have long existed In the Philippines and still continues to reign In the political arena. Because of these killings, anomalies and corruption stay rampant without being reprimanded and exposed. This exercise should be eliminated so as to promote the check and balance In the Philippine government. Subordination. Org/resources/PDF/ReportonPhilippineEJK20012010. PDF on August 5, 2013 at 6:56 AM.

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US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines to stage military drills in disputed South China Sea

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The United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines will hold their first joint naval exercises, including anti-submarine warfare training, in a show of force Sunday in the South China Sea where Beijing’s aggressive actions to assert its territorial claims have caused alarm.

The four treaty allies and security partners are holding the exercises to safeguard “the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region” and uphold freedom of navigation and overflight, they said in a joint statement issued by their defense chiefs Saturday.

China was not mentioned by name in the statement, but the four countries reaffirmed their stance that a 2016 international arbitration ruling , which invalidated China’s expansive claims on historical grounds, was final and legally binding.

China has refused to participate in the arbitration, rejected the ruling and continues to defy it. The Philippines brought its disputes with China to international arbitration in 2013 after a tense sea standoff.

There was no immediate comment by China.

Last year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned against military exercises involving the United States and its allies in the disputed waters harming its security and territorial interests.

“We stand with all nations in safeguarding the international order based on the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region,” the four nations said but did not provide specific details of the military drills, called the Maritime Cooperative Activity .

Japan said in a statement, issued by its embassy in Manila, that it would deploy its destroyer, the JS Akebono, for the South China Sea exercises, which would include anti-submarine warfare training and other military maneuvers.

“Japan believes that the issue concerning the South China Sea is directly related to the peace and stability of the region and is a legitimate concern of the international community including Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and the United States,” Japan’s Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said in the statement.

“Japan opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by force, such attempts as well as any actions that increase tensions in the South China Sea,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement the exercises “underscore our shared commitment to ensuring that all countries are free to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said “respect for national sovereignty and agreed rules and norms based on international law underpin the stability of our region.” Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said the military drills on Sunday would be the first in a series of activities to build the Philippines’ “capacity for individual and collective self-defense.”

Aside from China and the Philippines, the long-simmering disputes in the South China Sea, a key global trade route, also involve Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. But skirmishes between Beijing and Manila have particularly flared since last year.

Washington lays no claims to the strategic seaway but has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend its longtime treaty ally the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

China has warned the U.S. not to intervene in the disputes, which have sparked fears of an escalation into a major conflict that could involve the two world powers.

Japan has separate territorial disputes with China over East China Sea islands. Increasing tensions in the disputed waters would be high on the agenda when President Joe Biden hosts his Japanese and Philippine counterparts in a summit at the White House next week.

In the latest hostilities last month, the Chinese coast guard used water cannons that injured a Filipino admiral and four of his navy personnel and heavily damaged their wooden supply boat near the Second Thomas Shoal . The cannon blast was so strong it threw a crewman off the floor but he hit a wall instead of plunging into the sea, Philippine military officials said.

The Philippine government summoned a Chinese embassy diplomat in Manila to convey its “strongest protest” against China. Beijing accused the Philippine vessels of intruding into Chinese territorial waters, warning Manila not to “play with fire” and saying China would continue to take actions to defend its sovereignty.

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Taiwan’s Strongest Earthquake in 25 Years Kills 9 and Injures Hundreds

The magnitude-7.4 quake was followed by more than 200 aftershocks. Dozens of people were trapped. Two buildings in the city of Hualien teetered perilously.

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By Meaghan Tobin ,  Victoria Kim ,  Chris Buckley ,  Mike Ives ,  Siyi Zhao and John Yoon

Reporting from Taipei and Hualien, Taiwan, and from Seoul, South Korea

The first quake was alarming enough — a rumble more powerful than anything felt in Taiwan for a quarter-century, lasting for more than a minute on Wednesday morning, knocking belongings and even whole buildings askew. It was so strong it set off tsunami warnings in Japan, China and the Philippines.

But then, even in a fault-riddled place with long and hard experience with earthquakes, the jolt of aftershock after aftershock was startling, continuing every few minutes throughout the day.

The magnitude-7.4 quake killed nine and injured at least 1,038 others, stretching an expert quake response system that has served as a model in other places. In Hualien County, close to the epicenter, 93 people were stranded as of Thursday morning, including dozens of cement factory workers in two rock quarries, according to officials. Forty flights were canceled or delayed. Around 14,000 households were without water, and 1,000 households were without power.

By late Wednesday evening, 201 aftershocks had been reported, many over magnitude 5. With rain expected in the coming days, authorities warned of possible landslides.

Shake intensity

“I was sleeping at home when the shaking started, and it kept shaking and shaking for so long,” said Chen Hsing-yun, a 26-year-old resident of Hualien who was with her 2-year-old child and her parents in a third-story apartment when the quake struck. “After the main earthquake stopped I went downstairs with my baby — but then the tremors kept coming all day.”

Many residents had been at home, getting ready for work and school, when the quake struck. Others were driving on highways or had already set off on early hikes in Taiwan’s national parks ahead of a four-day holiday. After the main quake stopped, people across the island fled on to the streets to assess damaged buildings and quickly text friends and family members reassurances and pictures of broken belongings.

But almost immediately, people felt the stomach-jolting lurch of an aftershock. Taiwan is earthquake-prone, and minor tremors are common, but these continued every few minutes throughout the day. By 3 p.m., there had been 101 subsequent shocks, with at least one tremor of magnitude 6.5 and many over magnitude 5.

Officials said more aftershocks were likely in the next four days and warned residents to avoid visiting the tombs of ancestors, especially in the mountains, this weekend during the holiday, known as Ching Ming, meant to honor them. The forecast called for rain, which could make travel conditions on damaged roads more treacherous.

Although the earthquake will reverberate for a long time because it was so large, a high number of aftershocks is not unheard-of, for a quake of this magnitude, said Yi-Ying Wen, an earthquake expert at National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. “We should expect that the size of the aftershocks will slowly get smaller and smaller over the next two weeks.”

The heaviest damage was in Hualien County.

In the city of Hualien, the county seat, rescuers were focused on a brick building with glass windows called the Uranus Building, which had partially collapsed and was leaning heavily to one side. Residents emerged through windows and climbed down ladders, assisted by rescuers.

The fire department said one person in the building had died, while around two dozen others had been evacuated. Late into the night, construction workers used a crane to place hulking concrete blocks around the tilting building to stabilize it. Hotels and shops down the street, including a 7-Eleven convenience store — a constant sight in Taiwan — remained open, even as aftershocks continued to sway the buildings near midnight.

“Hualien has had quite a lot of earthquakes, so many people knew what to do when the earthquake came — stay inside, find a safe structure,” said Lin Chin-Ching, 47, who reopened his beer-and-barbecue restaurant in Hualien after cleaning up broken kitchenware. “We did that.” But, he said, many people’s livelihoods would be hurt.

“My restaurant is so busy because many others are a mess and haven’t cleaned up,” he said. The overarching worry, Mr. Lin added, was the destruction of roads and tunnels, which could devastate a local economy that is highly dependent on tourists. “A lot of buildings need to be inspected for damage that you can’t see. That will take a long time too.”

Rescuers freed dozens of people trapped elsewhere, including six people from one rock quarry on Thursday morning. Three hikers were killed by falling rocks on a trail in Taroko National Park, a popular site famed for a gorge that cuts through mountains that rise steeply from the coast.

The county government opened evacuation areas where people could take shelter, such as high school gymnasiums and athletic fields, as aftershocks continued to roll through the area.

Derik du Plessis, a 44-year-old South African who has lived in Hualien for 17 years, described chaos and panic on the streets after the earthquake as people rushed to pick up their children and check on their houses.

Roads were blocked off, he said, and walls had toppled onto cars. “Right now people seem to have calmed down, but a lot of people are sitting on the road,” he said. “They don’t want to go into the buildings because there are still a lot of tremors.”

Lin Jung, 36, who manages a shop selling sneakers in Hualien, said he had been at home getting ready to take his 16-month-old baby to a medical appointment when the earthquake struck. At first it felt like a series of small shocks, he said, then “suddenly it turned to an intense earthquake shaking up and down.” The glass cover of a ceiling lamp fell and shattered. “All I could do was protect my baby,” he said.

The quake also jolted the island’s west coast, toppling one building in Changhua County entirely. Many rail services were halted as the authorities inspected tracks for damage.

The earthquake struck during the morning commute, shortly before 8 a.m., at a depth of 22 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Taiwan is at the intersection of the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate, making it vulnerable to seismic activity. Hualien sits on multiple active faults, and 17 people died in a quake there in 2018.

The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people here were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day on Thursday, when, across the Chinese-speaking world, people mourn the dead and make offerings at their graves. The holiday weekend would typically see a spike in travel as people visit family across Taiwan.

The authorities were working to restore rail services in Hualien and two-way traffic on the highways in the region, said Wang Guo-cai, the island’s transport minister, at a news conference.

TSMC, the world’s biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said a few hours later they were returning to work. The company said its safety systems were operating normally and that it was still assessing the impact. TSMC’s fabs are clustered along Taiwan’s west coast, away from the epicenter of the earthquake.

All personnel were safe, the company said. Still, chip production is highly precise and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars.

Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness has evolved over the past few decades in response to some of the island’s largest and most destructive quakes . In 1999, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people.

That quake, which struck about 90 miles south-southwest of Taipei, was the second-deadliest in the island’s history, according to the U.S.G.S. and the Central Weather Administration. More than 10,000 people were injured and more than 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

In the years since then, the authorities established an urban search-and-rescue team and opened several emergency medical operation centers, among other measures . And in 2018, after a quake in the eastern coastal city of Hualien killed 17 people and caused several buildings to partially collapse, the government ordered a wave of building inspections .

Taiwan has also been improving its early warning system for earthquakes since the 1980s. And two years ago, it rolled out new building codes that, among other things, require owners of vulnerable buildings to install ad hoc structural reinforcements.

Paul Mozur and Siyi Zhao contributed reporting.

Meaghan Tobin is a technology correspondent for The Times based in Taipei, covering business and tech stories in Asia with a focus on China. More about Meaghan Tobin

Victoria Kim is a reporter based in Seoul and focuses on breaking news coverage across the world. More about Victoria Kim

Chris Buckley , the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues. More about Chris Buckley

Mike Ives is a reporter for The Times based in Seoul, covering breaking news around the world. More about Mike Ives

Siyi Zhao is a reporter and researcher who covers news in mainland China for The Times in Seoul. More about Siyi Zhao

John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news. More about John Yoon