President Marcos urged to stop killings of activists, drug suspects

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos should stop the killing of activists and drug suspects if he wants to distance himself from the policies of his predecessor, former president Rodrigo Duterte, rights group Karapatan said yesterday.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said their group has documented 87 extrajudicial killings of activists as of November 2023, or an average of five deaths every month.

The killings include five massacres wherein 27 victims were brutally murdered, including children and elderly women, Karapatan claimed.

Palabay said that on top of the monthly killings are violations of civil and political rights.

“Under Marcos Jr., Karapatan has documented 12 victims of enforced disappearance; 316 victims of illegal and arbitrary arrest; 22,391 victims of bombing; 39,769 victims of indiscriminate firing; 24,670 victims of forced evacuation; 552 victims of forced surrender and 1,609,496 victims of threats, harassment, intimidation, including red-tagging,” she said.

The Third World Studies Program’s “Dahas Project” has reported that under the Marcos Jr. administration’s “war on drugs,” there have been 474 drug-war related killings.

As the country is set to observe International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, Karapatan said the climate of impunity that shielded Duterte and his subalterns from being held accountable for the killings during his term have not stopped in Marcos’ administration.

“Karapatan demands an end to this climate of impunity and calls for justice and accountability for the killings in both the counterinsurgency war and the war on drugs,” Palabay said in a statement.

She said Marcos’ attempts to project a different image of himself from that of his predecessor are crumbling in the face of killings in his administration.

“Domestic redress mechanisms have clearly failed to exact justice for the victims of Duterte’s bloody drug war, with only three convictions attained in the face of up to 30,000 drug war-related killings perpetrated by police forces and police-sanctioned vigilante death squads since Duterte’s bloody campaign began in mid-2016,” Palabay said.

Karapatan also believes that the ongoing investigations into Duterte’s drug war by prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) “offer a glimpse of hope to the victims and their families.

ICC investigators must be allowed into the country for their probe, Karapatan said.

Palabay sayd “the Marcos Jr. regime must also answer for its own perpetuation of Duterte’s fascist counterinsurgency and drug war policies that continue to claim the lives of hundreds of Filipinos.” — Artemio Dumlao