Shadowy killings in Manila persist after police quit drugs war

Shadowy killings in Manila persist after police quit drugs war

February 02, 2017
Friends and loved ones of John Jezreel David, 21, who was shot dead in what police said was an anti-drug operation, cry during his funeral rites at the north cemetery in Metro Manila, on Wednesday. — Reuters
Friends and loved ones of John Jezreel David, 21, who was shot dead in what police said was an anti-drug operation, cry during his funeral rites at the north cemetery in Metro Manila, on Wednesday. — Reuters



MANILA — A young man’s body lay in a pool of blood, surrounded by bullet casings. A loved one rushed to the scene in the dark, rundown Manila neighborhood and howled in anguish as onlookers huddled behind a police cordon.

It’s a scene that has been replayed thousands of times in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs over the past seven months. But this was on Tuesday night, a day after Philippine police were ordered to halt anti-drugs operations that have left more than 2,500 people dead in what police say are shootouts. Thousands of users and small-time dealers have also been killed outside of the police anti-drugs missions. Human rights groups say many are by assassins paid by police, or are police themselves. Police deny involvement in extra-judicial killings.

Aldrin de Guzman, 24, was gunned down outside his home before midnight on Tuesday in circumstances all-too-familiar for the dwellers of Manila’s poorest neighborhoods.

Another man was shot and killed in a crumbling shop house not too far away, at around the same time. Mystery gunmen on a motorcycle shot de Guzman repeatedly, according to police, following the same pattern as thousands of other vigilante-style killings of drug dealers and users.

De Guzman’s mother, Elisa, said her son had no enemies, but had used drugs in the past.

“That’s a long time ago. If the person is already reforming, they still do this?” she said, tears building in her eyes. “They should stop all these shootings... many are caught in between, just like my son. They should stop claiming lives.”

No witnesses saw the killers.

The attack bore the same hallmarks as many of the other killings over the past seven months activists believe are carried out by hit men working in cahoots with police, or by officers in plain clothes.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has said allegations that hit men were on the police payroll “are obviously not the norm” and the PNP was making “significant breakthroughs” in investigations into killings.

Meanwhile, the Philippine defense ministry asked President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday to issue an order for the military to play a role in his war on drugs, including granting troops powers to arrest “scalawag” police.

The ministry asked Duterte to formalise remarks he made in a speech to army generals on Tuesday, when he said he wanted their help in his drugs war, and to detain members of a police force Duterte on Sunday said was “corrupt to the core.”

The ministry asked for “an official order regarding this presidential directive to serve as a legal basis for our troops to follow.”

“By the same token, the president’s verbal directive to arrest ‘scalawag cops’ should also be covered by a formal order,” the ministry said in a statement.

In another development, Amnesty International said on Wednesay that Philippine police may have committed crimes against humanity by killing thousands of alleged drug offenders or paying others to murder as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

An Amnesty report, which followed an in-depth investigation into the drug war, also outlined what it said were other widespread police crimes aside from extrajudicial killings that mainly targeted the poor. “Acting on orders from the very top, policemen and unknown killers have been targeting anybody remotely suspected of using of selling drugs,” Rawya Rageh, a senior crisis adviser for Amnesty, said.

“Our investigation shows that this wave of extrajudicial killings has been widespread, deliberate and systematic, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity.” — AFP


February 02, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS