Guevarra on 'drug war' review: CHR input welcome; participation up to NBI
MANILA, Philippines — Inputs from the Commission on Human Rights into the Duterte government’s panel review into “war on drugs” operations that resulted in deaths are welcome, but Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said that their participation in case build-up would be up to the National Bureau of Investigation.
Guevarra said in a message to Philstar.com that the department, which is leading the “war on drugs” review panel, that inputs from the CHR is “certainly welcome.”
But the commission's actual participation in the analysis and probe by the National Bureau of Investigation of the more than case files will be up to the agency.
"[W]e leave it to the NBI to determine if it needs the actual participation of the CHR in the case build-up, such as securing statements from witnesses," he added.
Case build-up on these records — that date back to July 1, 2016 — could lead to criminal complaints being filed. Those complaints will then go through preliminary investigation that could lead to an indictment, which might then lead to trial — and this could take years.
Guevarra said the "war on drugs" review panel will work on submitting an updated report to President Rodrigo Duterte before June 30. This will cover "war on drugs" operations that resulted in deaths from July 2016 up to the date of the report.
"Until then, all I can say is that the National Bureau of Investigation case build-up on the incident reports endorsed by the Philippine National Police Internal Affairs Service is ongoing," he added.
"The same is true with respect to the 300 or so cases that we culled from the files of the national prosecution service in certain regions and referred to the NBI for further investigation," he added.
CHR stonewalled
The DOJ-led review started in 2020, when Guevarra told the UNHRC that the panel was formed to conduct “a judicious review of the 5,655 anti-illegal drug operations where deaths occurred.”
Two reports have since been drafted by the panel. The first covered 300 cases in few provinces such as Bulacan and Pampanga, but this was not publicized and was submitted directly to President Rodrigo Duterte.
A matrix was released on the second report that covered 52 cases from the police’s Internal Affairs Services where it found direct liability on cops involved in the deadly “war on drugs” operations.
The CHR however were largely left out of these reviews, despite repeated requests, their commissioners had said.
The commission noted in its April 2022 report said the police had often “refused, denied or ignored” their requests to review police documents.
"Independent and impartial accountability mechanisms — such as fact-finding investigations by the CHR — have been hampered by predilection and uncooperativeness of agencies involved in the campaign against illegal drugs," the report read.
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