Lacson: Pay victims of drug war

The dead body of tricycle driver and drug user Jonnel Flaviano,22, lies near the pile of garbage along Capulong Street, Tondo, Manila. (Photo from Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Sen. Panfilo Lacson has called on the Duterte administration to compensate unintended victims of its brutal war on illegal drugs even without court intervention.

Noting that court intervention takes years to accomplish, Lacson said the government could provide short-term remedies without necessarily admitting criminal or even civil liability.

“It can be done through burial assistance or even scholarship programs for the children in case the ‘unintended victim’ was the breadwinner,” he told the Inquirer in a text message.

Lacson made the call in the wake of President Rodrigo Duterte’s statements recognizing the “unintended slays” in the antidrug campaign and acknowledging that even children have died in the crossfire in police operations against drug users and pushers.

Duterte apology

Mr. Duterte’s admission came with an apology, saying in an interview on ABS-CBN on Thursday that “there has to be a casualty and there has to be some drawbacks” in the campaign. He again called for public support for the relentless drive against illegal drugs.

In a Twitter post on Friday night, Lacson sought reparation especially for the poor who have died as collateral damage in the bloody campaign, which has claimed thousands of lives since Mr. Duterte rose to power largely on an anticrime platform in July.

The deaths have exceeded 6,000, more than 2,000 of which were due police operations. The rest are classified as “deaths under investigation,” including vigilante killings that remain unsolved.

“Unintended killings or collateral damage, especially the ‘slippers’ victims of the government’s antidrug war must at least be compensated,” Lacson said in his post.

In the long run, he said, justice must catch up with the still faceless vigilantes responsible for many of the deaths.

Wanting in solving DUIs

Lacson, a former national police chief, noted how poorly the police force was faring in solving deaths under investigation (DUIs).

“The long-term compensation is serving justice by going after the perpetrators of the so-called vigilante killings. The police are wanting in this regard having resolved only 21 percent of the more than 4,000 cases of DUIs,” he said.

The senator earlier called on the Philippine National Police to create a separate task force to investigate the more than 3,000 DUIs recorded since July, saying the resolution rate of just over a fifth of the total “was too low.”

Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, said the police should diligently pursue investigations instead of arguing that deaths also happened in previous administrations.

He cochaired the Senate’s investigation of the spate of deaths in the drug war in which the lead body, Sen. Richard Gordon’s committee on justice and human rights, found no evidence of a state-sanctioned operation to kill drug suspects.

Lacson also led the Senate inquiry into the Nov. 5 predawn slay of Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. of Albuera, Leyte province, which he and several senators said bore the hallmarks of premeditation.