The Senate building at the GSIS Complex in Pasay City (Photo by LYN RILLON / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Opposition senators called for an inquiry on Tuesday on anti-drug police operations in the past week that left at least 80 people dead, including a 17-year-old student in Caloocan City.
The Senate minority bloc filed Senate Resolution No. 473 directing the appropriate committees to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the recent series of drug raids, as well as the direction of the Duterte administration’s drug war.
The resolution was filed by Sens. Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV, Leila de Lima, Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros, Francis Pangilinan, and Antonio Trillanes IV.
“There is a need not only to attain justice for Kian and other victims of abuse by the State in the hands of our law enforcers and authorities but also to reassess and change the strategy of the administration’s drug war, which unjustly targets the poor and the helpless while failing to address the root causes of the drug menace in the country,” the senators said in the resolution.
In a separate statement, Aquino said: “It is high time to end police abuse during drug raids. The police should be reminded of their mandate to protect the citizens, especially the helpless and the poor.”
The move came as outrage mounted over the killing of 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos in anti-drug police operations in Caloocan City for allegedly fighting back.
CCTV footage, however, showed Delos Santos being dragged by plainclothes police officers before he was found dead. Witnesses also recounted hearing the boy pleading for his life.
He was found dead lying face down in fetal position with three gunshot wounds, one on his back and two on his head, according to autopsy report.
Delos Santos was one of the at least 80 people killed in simultaneous anti-drug operations in Metro Manila and Bulacan.
The senators said that, since July 1, 2016, more than 7,000 suspected drug dealers had been killed under the campaign against illegal drugs, 3,116 of which were killed in police operations. Thirty-one of the dead were children.
Trillanes stressed that the investigation should be aimed not only at purging police ranks of personnel implicated in the killing and abuse of drug suspects but also at providing accountability for those found erring.
“Relieving certain personnel without making them suffer the consequences of their action will not make a dent,” Trillanes said.
The case of Kian, along with numerous accounts from witnesses and survivors of previous anti-drug police operations, defies claims that the targets were killed because they fought back against the police, according to the resolution.
“We cannot tolerate the alarming police impunity in the country,” Drilon said. “We need to investigate these killings of alleged drug suspects including a Grade 11 student in police operations.”
Pangilinan, for his part, urged the government to pursue a more “holistic approach” to the drug problem as it is “not just a problem of the police, but also a problem of health and poverty.”
De Lima, meanwhile, appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte to categorically order the police to stop the killings.
“Any other way to try to appease the growing outrage sparked by the killing of Kian and other recent incidents of summary execution would be insufficient as it is hypocritical,” De Lima said.
The senators lamented that the past incidents demonstrated “an apparent pattern of deception, misconduct, and abuse by the police conducting the drug raids,” which took away from suspects their right to due process and claimed innocent lives.
“Unless there is an immediate honest-to-goodness investigation into these killings, the already long list of grave rights violations linked to the drug war will only continue to grow,” the senators said. /atm