After admitting police abuses in 'drug war,' Marcos needs to take important next step -- HRW

Speaking before the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC on Thursday, May 4, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos replied when asked about the “drug war” abuses: “In my view, what had happened in the previous administration is that we focused very much on enforcement. And because of that, it could be said that there and that has caused some concern… in many quarters about the human rights situation in the Philippines.” He added that the “cleansing” he initiated in the PNP is a response to that.

Below is HRW’s reaction to Marcos’s statement, attributable to Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch:

While President Marcos’s recent statement on the abuses committed during the “war on drugs” is hedged and measured, it is still a long overdue acknowledgment of a problem.  Now, President Marcos needs to take the next step.

Armed with the knowledge the police committed abuses, he should do the next logical and just thing: order the criminal prosecution of police officers implicated in abuses in the “drug war.” Doing so would prove his sincerity, and the thousands of victims of the anti-drug campaign deserve nothing less.

No one should overlook the fact that out of the more than 6,200 killings the police had admitted to committing, only three cases have resulted in a court conviction. Such a record of failure in accountability and justice is both outrageous and unacceptable.

Marcos’s claim of an “internal cleansing” in the Philippine National Police is hardly a sufficient response to this serious problem, as any Filipino on the street would tell you because there is nothing in the history of the Philippines police to indicate that they will be willing to hold their own accountable. In reality, this “cleansing” is a token response designed for propaganda more than anything else.

President Marcos should stop playing games with justice for “drug war” victims, and launch an honest-to-goodness prosecution of police perpetrators, as well as start cooperating with the ICC’s on-going investigation of “drug war” abuses under former President Rodrigo Duterte.