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The Killing State THE KILLING STATE DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE | july 2021 | july A HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATIONER HUMAN RIGHTS A IN THIS REPORT 1. INTRODUCTION | 1 2. STATE-SPONSORED VIOLENCE | 3 3. DISTORTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND SHRINKING OF CIVIC SPACES | 7 4. DEROGATION OF ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL RIGHTS | 13 5. CONFRONTING DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE | 17 Permission to Reproduce The information in this publication may be reproduced for non- commercial purposes, in part or in whole, and by any means, without charge or further permission from the institution, provided that due diligence is exercised in ensuring the accuracy of the information reproduced; that the institution is identified as the source of the information; and that the reproduction is not presented as the official version of the information reproduced, nor as having been made in affiliation with or with For Inquiries: the endorsement of the Philippine [email protected] Human Rights Information Center. INTRO 1DUCTION President Rodrigo Roa Duterte was Change did come, after all, albeit elected in 2016 under a campaign in terms of high kill counts and platform that promised a no-nonsense immense suffering. Change, it approach to crushing crime, corrup- turns out, means living in a country tion and the illegal drugs problem. His besieged by extreme violence and campaign team packaged him as both widespread human rights violations tough and compassionate, with “Tapang at a rate and intensity not seen at Malasakit” and the battlecry “Change since Martial Law’s darkest days. is coming.” This human rights crisis, made This messaging resonated with a possible by the violent so-called war populace who felt that the promise of on drugs, the widespread attacks better lives post-EDSA 1986 had never against human rights defenders, materialized and believed that the activists, and the media, and the ‘progress’ and orderliness in Davao City willful disregard for social and should be replicated throughout the economic justice, has caused untold country. Rodrigo Duterte would go on suffering and will have manifold to win by a very comfortable margin, impacts for years to come. getting 16.6 million of some 44 million votes, one of the highest voter turnouts Our task with this paper is in history. two-fold: trace this human rights crisis from 2016 to present by high- Now, in 2021, the Philippines is lighting its key dimensions and hurtling through a human rights crisis describe the impacts of this crisis made worse by a global pandemic. on Filipinos and the country’s democracy. THE KILLING STATE: DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE 2 STATE- 2SPONSORED VIOLENCE During his campaign, Duterte made This killing spree reveals the it known that his presidency would be lie that is Duterte’s pro-poor marked by violence: he promised to posturing. PhilRights’ documen- turn Manila Bay red with blood, to kill tation of victims of extrajudicial tens of thousands, implement a “shoot killings has revealed that most of to kill” policy and to ignore human those killed are male adults who rights in his drive to stamp out illegal were often the primary breadwin- drugs and crime. ners of their families, were low and irregular wage earners, of low In different speeches, Duterte would educational attainment, and are urge the police and even ordinary residents of urban poor communi- citizens to engage in arrests of suspected ties. In other words, the so-called criminals and kill them should they war on drugs is a war on the poor. resist. He even guaranteed protection for police for when they have to kill Children have not been spared during operations. from the killings; in 2016, the president described children killed Mere days after Duterte was sworn into in the campaign as “collateral office, media reports flooded in, docu- damage.” The truth is that children menting the deaths of dozens of alleged have become easy targets. The drug suspects. A July 2016 report from Children’s Legal Rights and Devel- Al Jazeera, for example, tallied at least opment Center (CLRDC) has docu- 45 deaths during the president’s first mented at least 122 children killed four days in office alone. The death toll due to the so-called war on drugs quickly skyrocketed, both from police from 2016 to 2019 alone. operations and the sudden increase of vigilante-style killings. THE KILLING STATE: DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE 4 The pandemic and ensuing lockdown did not dampen the violence. In fact, Human Rights Watch reported in 2020 that deaths from the so-called war on drugs increased by more than 50% from April through July 2020, citing the Philippine Drug Enforce- ment Agency’s (PDEA) own numbers. THE KILLING STATE: DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE 5 Naturally, linking the government’s Instead of holding State agents violent approach to illegal drugs with accountable for human rights vio- its response to the pandemic starts with lations perpetrated in the context President Duterte himself. In the early of the so-called wars on drugs and days of the pandemic, during a televised terrorism, the president himself public address, the president uttered has assured them protection and these words: freedom from prosecution for their actions. “I will not hesitate. My orders are to the police and military, also the barangay, that if there is trouble or the situation arises that people The president has also been re- fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them lentless in his push for the res- dead. Do you understand? Dead. Instead of toration of the death penalty, causing trouble, I’ll send you to the grave.” premised both as deterrent and In Mindanao, meanwhile, the Martial hardline punishment for heinous Law declaration put in place after the crimes. The insistence to bring back Marawi siege in 2017 and concluded only the death penalty not only con- in 2019, has also triggered extrajudicial travenes the Constitution but also killings, with rights group KARAPATAN goes against a worldwide shift away having documented at least 49 victims from capital punishment and de- in the island and an average of at least liberately ignores the country’s ob- one unsolved killing per week between ligations to international human 2017 and 2018 alone. These killings rights law as a State party to the primarily targeted indigenous peoples Second Optional Protocol of the In- and activists. ternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). THE KILLING STATE: DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE 6 DISTOR 3TION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND SHRINKING OF CIVIC SPACES President Duterte and his allies within ing critics and activists as enemies and outside of government have been of the State who are out to desta- tremendously successful in controlling bilize and prevent the country from the narrative on human rights. Their progressing, he is able to decimate virulent anti-human rights rhetoric legitimate opposition. was already in place during the election campaign, and it only worsened when Indeed, the distortion of human Duterte took office. rights and vilification of human rights defenders (HRDs) has been Their biggest victory, arguably, is in so constant that unfounded accusa- successfully distorting human rights tions and personal attacks against as being a hindrance to national de- HRDs are routinely propagated. velopment. In rhetoric and in action, This has led to increasingly difficult President Duterte and his supporters working conditions for HRDs, who have led many Filipinos to believe that now routinely have to contend with national development is possible only harassment and disparagement through a violent, rule of law-defy- from the president’s supporters. ing, human rights-violating campaign against illegal drugs and the poor and At work is a wide-ranging ap- marginalized who are most associated plication of Pres. Duterte’s core with drug use. principle of governance: violence. The playbook is straightforward By dehumanizing people who use and chillingly effective—normalize drugs under a blanket adik tag and violence, frame civic participa- blaming them for violent crimes, he tion as a destabilizing force which convinced people that bringing peace must be subdued, and weaponize and order to communities require the legal apparatus against key civic bypassing established law enforcement society and media figures in order procedures and due process. By portray- to demoralize and quell resistance. THE KILLING STATE: DUTERTE’S LEGACY OF VIOLENCE 8 Those who voiced opposition were company ABS-CBN came to fruition targeted and suppressed, notably the in 2020, when his allies in Congress still-imprisoned Senator Leila de Lima toed the line and refused the and ousted Supreme Court Justice Ma. company’s franchise application. Lourdes Sereno. Vice President Leni That ABS-CBN’s closure happened Robredo has been sidelined and con- in the midst of a pandemic—a stantly mocked by the President and his crucial time when the public needed allies. These are outsized reactions to unfettered access to informa- legitimate opposition by any measure tion and the company’s employees but the fact that these leaders also needed to keep their jobs—seemed happen to be women reveal a still-vir- to matter less compared to the need ulent strain of misogyny in Philippine to satisfy Duterte’s whims. society that Duterte has gleefully par- ticipated in and exploited. Another crucial blow to democracy occurred in 2020 Equally alarming are the wide-rang- with the enactment of Republic ing attacks and discrediting of media or- Act 11479, or the Anti-Terror- ganizations engaged in critical reporting ism Act. Presidential spokesper- of the administration’s policies. The son Harry Roque touted the law as barrage of cases filed against social demonstrating the government’s news site Rappler and its co-founder “serious commitment to stamp and CEO Maria Ressa are blatant attacks out terrorism.” And yet, the law’s against freedom of the press and has provisions were widely panned by disrupted the media’s important role as legal luminaries, human rights the fourth estate.
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