Utilitarianism

On

Extra Judicial Killing

Submitted To:

Mr. Clydell Ofilas

Submitted By:

Phil Jereg R. Guihama

Mark Damien G. Bernaldo

BSN-1 J
What is Extra Judicial Killing?

An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution) is the killing of a person by

governmental authorities or individuals without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or

legal process. Extrajudicial punishments are mostly seen by humanity to be unethical, since

they bypass the due process of the legal jurisdiction in which they occur. Extrajudicial

killings often target leading political, trade union, dissident, religious, and social figures and

are only those carried out by the state government or other state authorities like the armed

forces or police, as extra-legal fulfillment of their prescribed role.

Is Killing One to Save Five Moral?

Imagine you are standing beside some tram tracks. In the distance, you spot a runaway

trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five workers who cannot hear it coming. Even if

they do spot it, they won’t be able to move out of the way in time.

As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realise

that if you pull the lever, the tram will be diverted down a second set of tracks away from

the five unsuspecting workers.

However, down this side track is one lone worker, just as oblivious as his colleagues.

So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five?

This is the crux of the classic thought experiment known as the trolley dilemma, developed

by philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 and adapted by Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1985.

The trolley dilemma allows us to think through the consequences of an action and consider

whether its moral value is determined solely by its outcome.

The trolley dilemma has since proven itself to be a remarkably flexible tool for probing our

moral intuitions, and has been adapted to apply to various other scenarios, such as war,

torture, drones, abortion and euthanasia.

Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines.

Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines are

illegal executions – unlawful or felonious killings – and forced disappearances in

the Philippines.[1] These are forms of extrajudicial punishment, and include extrajudicial

executions, summary executions, arbitrary arrest and detentions, and failed prosecutions

due to political activities of leading political, trade union members, dissident and/or social

figures, left-wing political parties, non-governmental organizations, political journalists,

outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, agricultural reform activists, members of

organizations that are allied or legal fronts of the communist movement like "Bayan group"

or suspected supporters of the NPA and its political wing, the Communist Party of the

Philippines.

Extra Judicial killings and Death Squads are common here in the Philippines, an example of

Extra Judicial killing is the Maguindanao Massacre where the Committee to Protect Journalist

has called the single deadliest event for Journalists.

Another example of extra judicial killing is Duterte’s War on Drugs campaign, which urges

the citizen to kill the suspected criminals and drug addicts and ordered the police to adopt

shoot to kill policy has offered bounties for suspects and some admitted to personally killing

suspected criminal.
Extrajudicial killings chief concern in Philippines.

Extrajudicial killings have been the chief human rights concern in the Philippines for many

years and, after a sharp rise with the onset of the anti-drug campaign in 2016, these

continued in 2018 with an average of six persons killed daily in operations against illegal

drugs, according to the latest annual United States Department of State Country Reports on

Human Rights Practices.

“There were numerous reports that government security agencies and their informal allies

committed arbitrary or unlawful killings in connection with the government-directed

campaign against illegal drugs,” the 2018 report released yesterday said.

It added that “killings of activists, judicial officials, local government leaders and journalists

by anti-government insurgents and unknown assailants also continued.”

From January to Sept. 29 last year, the media chronicled 673 deaths in police operations

suspected to be connected with the government’s anti-drug campaign.

From July 2016 to July 2018, law enforcement agencies reported that an average of six

persons died daily in anti-drug operations. The 105,658 anti-drug operations conducted from

July 2016 to September 2018 led to the deaths of 4,854 civilians and 87 members of the

security forces.

“The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) suspected the Philippine National Police (PNP) or

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) of involvement in 208 of these new complaints

and the Armed Forces of the Philippines or paramilitary personnel in 19 cases,” the report

said.
“The PNP’s institutional deficiencies and the public perception that corruption was endemic

within the force continued,” it said.

A number of United Nations special rapporteur or working group visit requests remained

pending, according to the report.

In February 2018, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court (ICC)

announced the opening of a preliminary examination of potential crimes, including

extrajudicial and other killings, allegedly committed since July 1, 2016 in the government’s

anti-drug campaign.

In a March 2018 speech, President Duterte ordered security forces not to respond to any

probe or investigation request on human rights abuses in the country. In the same month,

the Philippines submitted a formal notification of withdrawal from the ICC’s Rome Statute,

which will take effect one year after the notification.

The ICC expressed regret over the Philippines’ move and encouraged the country to remain

part of the ICC.

A withdrawal, however, has no impact on ongoing proceedings or any matter which was

already under consideration by the ICC prior to the date on which the withdrawal became

effective nor on the status of any judge serving at the court.

In its report of activities released on Dec. 5, the ICC said it would continue the preliminary

examinations of alleged crimes against humanity, given the high number of killings in

Duterte’s war on drugs.

Bensouda said the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC would become effective on Sunday

or a year after the government deposited its withdrawal with the UN. Under the Rome

Statute, examinations that started before the withdrawal will not be affected.

“The office will also continue to record allegations of crimes committed in the Philippines to

the extent that they may fall within the jurisdiction of the court,” the ICC prosecutor said.

During the release of the report, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said every year

since 1977, the State Department has, through the report, put the world on notice that the

US will expose violation of human rights wherever they occur.

Pompeo said the US has told those who disgrace the concept of human dignity “they will

pay a price and that their abuses will be meticulously documented and then publicized.”

“By articulating abuses and pressuring non-compliant regimes, we can effect change. We’ve

certainly seen that. Over the years, this report has pushed governments to change course

and cease engaging in brutality and other abuses,” he said.

“We hope that it will continue to do so and cause oppressive regimes to honor human rights

in places where those voices are often silenced and where deep yearnings for tolerance and

respect have for too long gone unfulfilled,” he added.

Ambassador Michael Kozak, senior bureau official, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and

Labor at the State Department, said countries are not ranked as worst or best in the Human

Rights Report but the State Department said it reports facts on each country as best it can

assess them and let the reader draw conclusions.

“And I think if you go through the reports, if you see a country that says there were no

reports of egregious human rights violations, that’s probably in the pretty good category,
even though when you read the body, there may be some issues, but at least, they’re not

these really serious ones,” Kozak said.

“But then, if you look at another one, and they’ve got extrajudicial killing, they’ve got

torture, they’ve got rape as a weapon of war, killing journalists, closing down independent

media – bang, bang, bang, all of those things, you’d say, ‘Well, that probably fits in the

worst category or pretty close to it,’” he added

Utilitarianism on Extra Judicial Killings

Criminality often used in criminology is defined as the quality or state of being criminal or

the criminal characteristics of a person such as criminal records, etc. (“What is Criminality,”

n.d.). According to Numbeo doo (2016), the Philippines has a crime index value of 38.74

and among the cities, Manila City ranked first with a crime index of 60.54. With criminality

being present in our country, our political leaders attempt to diminish it with laws such as

the Republic Act No. 7659. However, criminality still manifests in our country causing the

citizens to doubt their safety.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte had an exchange of propositions with Senator-elect

and former Justice secretary Leila de Lima regarding Duterte’s way of dealing with

criminality in the Philippines. One of Duterte’s platform of government in terms of crime and

corruption is the reconsideration of death penalty or extrajudicial killings as a consequence

of vicious crimes. De Lima insisted the public to rethink about voting for Duterte as our

president (Andolong, 2016). However, according to Ranada (2016), “Rodrigo Duterte

changed his tune on extrajudicial killings during his January 7 to 8 visit to Cebu City” (para.

no. 1). As a political strategy, Duterte rebukes his viewpoint on extrajudicial killings making

it clear that he will only imply it resist in a violent manner. But this does not suggest the

criminals are to breathe in relief because he will still command the police and the military to

carry out executions of criminals involved in crucial crimes such as drugs (Ranada, 2016).
 The term ‘extrajudicial killing’ refers to the murder done without prior judgement of a

court in a legal system. Extrajudicial killings are manifested through killings done by

privately organized groups or homicides carried out by the state without the consent of the

legal system. Keeping that in mind, when it comes to this term, acts of different purposes

and casualties become attached to it. For instance, in terms of politics, the Philippine

government associate extrajudicial killing to “political killing” wherein the state has to be

involved in or at least silently authorize the killings besides the fact that political killings may

or may not signify involvement of the government whereas extrajudicial killings imply

involvement at all times. Commonly, politically driven extrajudicial killings are executed so

that the victim can have little or no defense and the perpetrator remains unidentified by

means of masks or doing it hastily at an isolated surrounding and time. Some even try to

make it look like a suicide act. With this, extrajudicial killings often lead to an illegal freedom

of killing since most of them do not get caught and punished by law.

Today, Philippines is put in hot waters and the whole world is looking at us closely because

of the unpopular and unprecedented all-out war drug campaign of President Rodrigo

Duterte. Nevertheless, the President have been very vocal about his “bloody” war against

illegal drugs since the beginning of his candidacy. He has been consistent in using tough

language in his war against crime and drugs. During the presidential campaign, Duterte

made the capacity to kill as the sine qua non (highest good) for the presidency.

Immediately after taking office on June 30, Duterte launched Oplan Tokhang

(Operation Tokhang, a combination of two words meaning to “knock” and “plead”. A

“community-based” approach, wherein village chiefs and residents are encouraged by police

to help compile neighborhood watch lists of suspected drug users and dealers. Based on the

list and other intelligence, the police conduct house-to-house visits, invite alleged users to

sign a waiver promising to stop using drugs, or submit themselves to a rehabilitation

program. Police records show that more than 4 million homes have been visited while 807,

659 people have surrendered as self-confessed drug users or dealers (theatlantic, 2016).

However, the abovementioned drug campaign wasn’t enough to crackdown illegal

drugs and other related crimes. Killing have become integral to the narrative of the

government’s war against the public menace. There have been three types of killings in the

anti-drug war: vigilante killings, police killings, and collateral damage.

Not surprisingly, it has been bloody indeed.

Less than a month into Duterte’s presidency, over 300 drug-related killings have

been recorded. Most have been shot during police operations. Others were killed by

unidentified gunmen and vigilantes (Curato, 2016). Just six months after he took oath into

office, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has reported 5, 617 drug-related deaths, 1, 959

at the hands of the police – the result of shoot-outs during drug bust operations, and they

say – and 3, 658 vigilante-style killings, usually performed by masked men on motorcycles

in pursuit of marked targets; and these brutal and excessively killings are continuously

increasing (theatlantic, 2016). President Duterte has never explicitly explained his

justification for mass killing, although he keeps on telling verbally to the public that he wants

to “end” illegal drugs “at all costs”. Duterte once said, “We will not stop until the last drug

lord… and the last pushers have surrendered or are put either behind bars or below the

ground, if they so wish”.

In his Inaugural address, he gave us a foretaste of the basis for his worldview: “I

have seen drugs destroyed individuals and ruined families”. Also, in his first month State of

the Nation address (SONA), he said, “Human rights must work to uplift human dignity. But

human rights cannot be used as shield or an excuse to destroy the country – your country

and my country. From these pronouncements, we infer that the moral philosophy
underlying the Duterte’s anti-drug war is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is “the doctrine that

actions are right if they are essential or for the benefit of a majority”.

This moral philosophy is one of the school of ethics as consequentialism. In this

school, the measure of morality rests on the “consequences” of man’s actions.President

Duterte’s war against drugs therefore, can be considered as “state of consequentialism”

since we are dealing here with a state-sanctioned program. Under this conviction, “all

actions, practices, and policies that promote the overall welfare of society are morally right,

and those that interfere are morally wrong”.

From Duterte’s view, the consequence of the drug trade and drug addiction is the

unacceptable tearing of the fabric of society. There is great truth in this. The pernicious

effects of drugs, not only in the Philippines but in every country, can be seen in the

compulsive search for artificial enjoyment, in the waste of unproductive lives, and in the

ensuing waves of criminality. All of these, plus the loss of hope, weigh heavily on the mind

and on society (Lores, 2016).

In fairness to the government, police reports say that they were able to arrest some

of the bigwigs in the illegal drugs – the drug lords like Jaybee Sebastian, Erwin Espinosa, to

name a few, and were able to arrest Sen. Leila de Lima for allegedly orchestrating drug-

trafficking ring.

Citing a report by the Philippine National Police (PNP), Communications Secretary

Martin Andanar said crime volume went down by 9.8 percent to 50,817 from 56,339 in the

same period last year. The average monthly crime rate hit 49.15, down by 11.51 percent

from 55.54 last year. The average monthly crime rate refers to the average number of crime

incidents in a given period of time for every 100,000 inhabitants per month (Romero, 2016).
References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killings_and_forced_disappearances_in_the_Philip

pines?fbclid=IwAR2Ro2Khm1YY1mGuLT-v0-0UJt4X-SMEHEuBNV611pB0yevXzAHgQYJ2SAE

https://theconversation.com/the-trolley-dilemma-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-five-

57111

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/03/15/1901640/extrajudicial-killings-chief-

concern-

philippines?fbclid=IwAR0Zsh4mMUETefEIoODEINTElCBXQ6OHlAf35l2BoZ2xO8d8jwjosG137x

https://www.scribd.com/doc/316528373/Application-of-Utilitarianism-or-Kantian-Ethics-in-

the-analysis-of-the-usage-of-extrajudicial-killing-as-a-means-of-fighting-criminality

http://dameanusabun.blogspot.com/2017/06/jeremy-bentham-and-philippines-war-on.html