Analysis on 'drug war' deaths that PCOO rejected is from data that PCOO released — Human Rights Watch
MANILA, Philippines — Rights watchdog Human Rights Watch on Thursday night stressed that its figures on 'drug war' killings that the Palace has disputed are from government sources.
HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson issued the statement after Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar dismissed the assertion that drug-related killings went up by 50% during the pandemic as having "weak methodological anchor and severely falsifies realities in the country."
Andanar said HRW should get better data.
But, Robertson pointed out on Thursday, "the analysis is based on the official government figures published by #RealNumbersPH, which is issued by the Presidential Communications Operations Office based on figures coming from different government agencies involved in the 'war on drugs,' mainly the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency."
In a September 8 dispatch, HRW said that it had found that 155 people were killed in the past four months against 103 people killed from December 2019 to March 2020. The difference between 155 and 103 is 52, which is 50.49% of 103.
"It was not hard to find this information," Robertson said Thursday.
"The number of fatalities in these ostensible drug enforcement raids, in which the police routinely claimed that the victims fought back, jumped dramatically from the 26 deaths recorded by the PDEA in five months from July to November 2019," HRW also said in its September 8 dispatch.
"Instead of playing its usual silly 'shoot the messenger' game by attacking critics, and trying to introduce distracting arguments, we advise the PCOO and the PNP chief General Camilo Cascolan to look at their own numbers again. Human Rights Watch did not introduce any new figures in the dispatch. Everything in it was based on #RealNumbersPH," Robertson said, adding the 50-percent estimate is low.
He said that the average monthly deaths recorded by #RealNumberPH from April to July is at 38 people, lower than figures that he said Cascolan gave the congressional Commission on Appointments on September 10.
"Gen. Cascolan stated that in those eight months, 623 people died during police operations. That's an average of 77 deaths per month," he said.
In response to HRW's September 8 dispatch, Andanar stressed that killings are not state policy and that "internal accountability mechanisms within our law enforcement agencies, such as the Philippine National Police, are in place to ensure that wrongful actions by law enforcers are addressed."
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