3rd Floor, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, 879 EDSA, Quezon City, Philippines

Phone: 0063-2-925-1786 Email: rise.up.phils@gmail.com

November 7, 2022

Mr. Morris Tidball-Binz

Special Rapporteur
Extrajudicial/Summary or Arbitrary Executions
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Dear Mr. Tidball-Binz,

Grace to you, and peace!

Rise Up for Life and for Rights, a network of church people, human rights advocates and
organization of some 200 families of victims in different parts of the Philippines, write to you
now with urgency with regard to drug-related extrajudicial killings and other human rights
abuses in the Philippines.

When Ferdinand R. Marcos took office as president of the Philippines in June 2022, he
inherited the ar on drugs of the previous administration. Mr. Marcos vowed to continue the
campaign which has resulted in thousands dead and detained, though with a shift in focus to
bigger fish in the drug trade. Still, Mr. Marcos interior secretar has declared that the ar
1
on drugs ill be as intensive as before . Despite clamor and intense public scrutiny over the
bloody tokhang ,2 Mr. Marcos has pointedly made no overt reversal of the policy that has
resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings. He even offered to appoint former President
Rodrigo R. Duterte as drug c ar , although the latter refused it.3 As of 31 October 2022, at
least 119 deaths have been tallied despite this administration s pronouncements, rendering its
promise of a bloodless campaign as mere lip service.4

1
Cabalza, Dexter (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aba : D g a be a e e a bef e , 06 July
2022, available at: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1622466/abalos-drug-war-to-be-as-intensive-as-
before
2
Tokhang literally means to knock and plead, ostensibly upon the doors of drug addicts to ask them to
change ways. The term now colloquially and loosely means to be killed in a drug operation. Cabico,
Gaea Katrina (Philstar.com), Most Filipinos believe cops into EJKs, drug trade, planting evidence
SWS, 18 February 2019, available at: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/02/28/1897487/most-
filipinos-believe-cops-ejks-drug-trade-planting-evidence-sws
3
Geducos, Argyll (Manila Bulletin), Drug war to continue under Marcos admin, says Palace, 11
August 2022, available at: https://mb.com.ph/2022/08/11/drug-war-to-continue-under-marcos-admin-
says-palace/. Caliwan, Christopher (Philippine News Agency), PBBM d g a : Sh f g f c b
no softening, 24 July 2022, available at: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1179627.
4
DahasPH of the University of the Philippines maintains a running court of reported drug-related
killings, see: https://twitter.com/dahasph. See also, supra, note 1.
Mr. Duterte, a tough-talking local executive with a shady human rights record, was president
from June 2016 through June 2022. He aged a ar on drugs , promising to rid the countr
of the scrouge of illegal drugs and criminality. His first few weeks were marked with vigilante-
style killings, which were common in Davao City where he and his children served as top
executives for over thirty years. Eventually, the police became more involved and chalked up
deaths while allegedly defending themselves from armed drug suspects during drug operations.
Six years later, thousands are dead in the conte t of the ar 5, over three hundred thousand
arrested and detained6, and many others impacted by massive human rights violations.

Among those who were extrajudicially killed are Ephraim Escudero, Michael Lee, and
Salvador Locasia. Their cases are illustrative of how the killings are done, and how the killers
have gotten away with murder. Their respective families have given consent in the submission
of this letter to your office.

Escudero is an 18-year old young father who went missing in September 2017, found five days
later lying by an empty road more than 100 kilometres away in Angeles City, northwest of
Manila. He had been shot in the head, his body wrapped in packing tape. His family has been
approached by witnesses who said they saw Escudero approached by two men riding a
motorcycle. Escudero has a previous record of recreational drug use, but with his family s
support sobered up when he had his son. Because the information they received are unsworn
and the documentation scant, this family has been unable to pursue criminal charges.

Lee is a jeepney driver who was shot by an unknown gunman in one of the bloodiest killing
fields in the National Capital Region, Barangay Bagong Silang, Caloocan. The case is
unsolved, but his widow strongly believes that the incident was drug-related, or at the least,
emboldened by the la lessness brought out b the ar on drugs . Without progress in the
police investigation, particularly in the identification of the perpetrator, no case can be filed.

Locasia was killed by policemen in an alleged buy-bust operation, after they claimed he fired
at them first. He as neutrali ed at the scene, and arrived dead at the hospital he was taken
to. Witnesses, however, have told his family that he was attending the wake of a neighbour
ironicall killed in a ar on drugs -related incident when police suddenly came, took him into
a dark alley, and shot him. His mother is afraid of police and distrustful of the local justice
system, and is hopeful that the international arena can provide relief.

Deaths have generally been registered as: a) found dead bodies, with some bearing warning
placards; b) vigilante killings, usually committed b men riding in tandem ; c) self-defense
in drugs operations; and d) in self-defense during other police operations. On the whole, the
instigation and encouragement to kill, as well as tolerance and condonation of the murders, by
Mr. Duterte himself and atrocious conduct of law enforcement officials amount to crimes
against humanity falling under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).7 The

5
There is no clear number for the total killed, as there is dispute over the denomination and
categorization of deaths. The figure goes up to as high as 30,000 people killed. See the discussion:
https://dahas.upd.edu.ph/database/
6
The latest government data shows that 345,216 have been arrested in police operations.
RealNumbersPH, 02 July 2016 to 31 May 2022, available at:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2215676668613859
7
The finding of the ICC prosecutor on admissibility is contained in its Request for authori ation of
an investigation , 24 May 2021, available at: https://www.icc-
cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2021_05381.PDF

2
court accordingly opened a preliminary examination, and in response the Philippine
government withdrew its accession to the Rome Statute. Nonetheless, in September 2021, the
Pre-trial Chamber I of the ICC authorized an investigation in order to determine who should
be held accountable for murders, arrests and detention, torture, enforced disappearances, and
all other rights violations related to the local and national Duterte administrations from
November 2011 to March 2019.8 The ICC prosecutor suspended investigation after a
communication from the Philippine government, but has recently requested to resume work.9

The Marcos administration has declared that the Philippines will not re-join as a party to the
Rome Statute,10 asserts that the Philippines is no longer required to cooperate ith the court s
investigation,11 and will investigate the crimes domestically. In a submission to the ICC, the
Marcos administration claimed that 302 criminal and administrative cases have already been
reviewed by the state justice department. But the Justice Department s revie of a fe
incidents involving extrajudicial killings focuses on low-ranking police personnel and is
intended, precisely, to shield Mr. Duterte and high-ranking officials from accountability while
giving the semblance of a functioning justice system.

We aver that there is no genuine investigation into crimes against humanity in the context of
the ar on drugs in the Philippines. The government continues to treat extrajudicial killings
that took place during the government s anti-narcotics operations, vigilante-style killings in the
Davao area from 2011 to 2016 and murders from 2016 onwards, arbitrary detention, as well as
other crimes committed in the conte t of the ar on drugs as merel isolated or random
incidents, not as a widespread and systematic attack pursuant to a state policy.

There has been no indictment or even an investigation of the persons most responsible for
crafting and implementing the ar on drugs campaign. There is no such investigation of
Duterte, the author and chief architect of the campaign, or other high-ranking officials who
implemented its constituent operations, such as General Ronald Dela Rosa, Gen. Oscar
Albayalde, Gen. Debold Sinas and the other Chiefs of the Philippine National Police (PNP)
under the Duterte administration; Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local
Government Ismael Sueno and his successor Eduardo Año, who oversaw PNP programs; the
Directors-General of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Isidro Lapeña and his
successor Aaron Aquino; the various regional, provincial, city and other local commanders of
security forces who directed the anti-narcotics operations in their respective areas; and the other
political, administrative, and security officials who contributed to the war on drugs campaign
and the government s efforts to conceal, justify, or deny the commission of crimes by security
forces, such acts being vital to the cover-up of extrajudicial killings.

8
Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2021_08044.PDF
9
Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2022_06156.PDF
10
Calonzo, Andreo (Bloomberg), Marcos Shuns International Court Probing Duterte Drug War, 01
August 2022, available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-01/marcos-shuns-
international-court-probing-duterte-drug-war.
11
Lema, Karen and Neil Jerome Morales (Reuters), Philippines refuses to work with ICC 'war on
drugs' probe, 16 September 2021, available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-
pacific/philippines-will-not-cooperate-with-icc-probe-war-drugs-spokesperson-2021-09-16/. Mr.
Duterte withdrew accession to the Rome Statue in March 2018, formally taking effect one year after.
His position is contrary to the decision of the countr s Supreme Court, hich ruled that the
Philippines obligations under the Rome Statute despite withdrawal. See: Pangilinan v. Cayetano, G.R.
No. 238875/G.R. No. 239483/G.R. No. 240954, 16 March 2021, available at:
https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/20238/

3
Legal recourse and remedies in the Philippines are limited by logistical and systemic
constraints. Rise Up for Life and for Rights, from a pool of over 200 documented incidents,
has only been able to build and push for the prosecution of policemen in three cases. The
killings of Luis and Gabriel Lois Bonifacio, father and son involved in a police operation in
September 2016, is being heard by a trial court and will next take the defense testimony of four
policemen in February 2023. The killings of six people in Bulacan who were kidnapped by
police in February 2020, and taken out in staged police operations, is pending trial against 11
policemen. The killing of John Jezreel David, a hotel worker who may have been accosted by
police on the way home from a late night shift, has been approved for filing in court but
awaiting final resolution. The wife and mother of the Bonifacio victims; the mother of Jim
Joshua Cordero, who is among the six killed in Bulacan; and the father of David have given
their consent in the submission of this letter to your office, but request adequate consideration
to their security.

Victims and their families continue to live in fear of retaliation from security forces and the
government in general. The Commission on Human Rights, in its April 2022 report, found that
victims are unwilling to cooperate in investigations and prosecution due to fear of reprisal.12
The report concluded that the government has not onl failed in its obligation to respect and
protect the human rights of every citizen, in particular, victims of drug-related killings, but it
has also encouraged a culture of impunity that shields perpetrators from being held to account.

The inadequacy and, often, complete absence of investigation and prosecution of grave human
rights violations clearly foster impunity and leave many victims and their families, including
the members of Rise Up for Life and for Rights, mistrustful of the Philippine justice system.
Under the Marcos administration, extrajudicial killings, whether drug-related or politically-
motivated, continue to be rampant, unexamined, and unpunished.

Rise Up for Life and for Rights urges the United Nations Special Procedures to condemn in the
strongest terms the ar on drugs in the Philippines which continues to claim lives; to support
the opening of a full investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal
Court into all allegations of crimes against humanity committed in the Philippines in the
conte t of Duterte s ar on drugs ; or to conduct its own independent fact-finding mission or
investigation. We submit this letter of allegation for your consideration, to make other
recommendations and/or to take appropriate action. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us for
clarification or additional information.

We look forward to your timely and reasonable assurance. We hope to an end to drug-related,
state-sponsored extrajudicial killings in the Philippines! Thank you very much.

Sincerely yours,

Deaconess Rubylin G. Litao

Coordinator

12
Executive Summary available at: https://chr.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/CHR-National-
Report-April-2022-Full-Final.pdf