Police and the government vehemently reject those allegations and accuse critics of exaggerating the

death toll for political gain.

The PNP recently acknowledged 4,270 deaths resulting from police operations between July 1, 2016 and
May 21, 2018. In addition, there were 22,983 possibly drug-related deaths under investigation during
that period.

How many innocents were killed in war on drugs in the Philippines?

Based on data from nearly 40 sources, including local and international newspapers in both English and
Filipino, the ACLED concluded that since 2016 at least 7,742 civilians have been killed in anti-drug
operations—25% higher than the police figure.No

Family members we interviewed repeatedly described the “war on drugs” as a war against the poor

(Manila) – Philippine police are falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings in a “war on drugs” that has
caused more than 7,000 deaths, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. President Rodrigo
Duterte and other senior officials have instigated and incited killings of mostly urban poor in a campaign
that could amount to crimes against humanity.

The United Nations should urgently create an independent, international investigation into the killings
to determine responsibility, and ensure mechanisms for accountability, Human Rights Watch said.

“Our investigations into the Philippine ‘drug war’ found that police routinely kill drug suspects in cold
blood and then cover up their crime by planting drugs and guns at the scene,” said Peter Bouckaert,
emergencies director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “President Duterte’s role in
these killings makes him ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

calls for killings as part of his anti-drug campaign could constitute acts instigating law enforcement to
commit murder. His statements encouraging the general population to commit vigilante violence against
suspected drug users could be criminal incitement.

Duterte, senior officials, and others implicated in unlawful killings could also be held liable for crimes
against humanity, which are serious offenses committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on
a civilian population. The numerous and seemingly organized deadly attacks on the publicly targeted
group of drug suspects could amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by the International
Criminal Court, of which the Philippines is a member.

As president, Duterte has a legal responsibility to publicly direct state security forces to end their
campaign of extrajudicial executions of suspected drug dealers and users. The National Bureau of
Investigation and the Ombudsman’s Office should impartially investigate the killings and seek
prosecutions of all those responsible. The Philippine Congress should hold extensive hearings on the
issue and adopt measures to prevent further killings. Donor countries to the Philippines should end all
assistance to the Philippine National Police until the killings cease and meaningful investigations are
undertaken, and they should consider redirecting that assistance to community-based harm reduction
programs that are appropriate and As president, Duterte has a legal responsibility to publicly direct state
security forces to end their campaign of extrajudicial executions of suspected drug dealers and users.
The National Bureau of Investigation and the Ombudsman’s Office should impartially investigate the
killings and seek prosecutions of all those responsible. The Philippine Congress should hold extensive
hearings on the issue and adopt measures to prevent further killings. Donor countries to the Philippines
should end all assistance to the Philippine National Police until the killings cease and meaningful
investigations are undertaken, and they should consider redirecting that assistance to community-based
harm reduction programs that are appropriate and effective.

Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ could more aptly be described as crimes against humanity targeting the urban
poor,” Bouckaert said. “Whether local outrage, global pressure, or an international inquiry brings these
killings to an end, someday they will stop and those responsible will be brought to justice.”

Duterte has frequently characterized his “war on drugs” as targeting “drug lords” and “drug pushers.”
However, in the cases investigated by Human Rights Watch, the victims of drug-related killings were all
poor, except for one case of mistaken identity, and many were suspected drug users, not dealers.
Almost all were either unemployed or worked menial jobs, including as rickshaw drivers or porters, and
lived in slum neighborhoods or informal settlements.

Philippine authorities have failed to seriously investigate drug war killings by either the police or
“unidentified gunmen,” Human Rights Watch said. Although the Philippine National Police has classified
a total of 922 killings as “cases where investigation has concluded,” there is no evidence that those
probes have resulted in the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators.

Abstract

Is the Philippine War on Drugs a ‘War on the Poor’? Focusing on beneficiaries of the Philippine
Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program as the most legible cohort of
poor, we examine the effects of the anti-narcotics campaign on impoverished families in Metro Manila
from April 2016 to December 2017.

From field validation and interviews with families affected by drug-related killings (DRKs), we find that at
least 333 victims out of 1,827 identifiable DRK cases in Metro Manila during the study period were CCT
beneficiaries. These are extremely conservative figures since field validation did not saturate all cities in
Metro Manila and does not include deaths after December 2017 or poor families who are not CCT
beneficiaries.

The findings illustrate that DRKs negatively affect CCT beneficiaries and their families. Most victims were
breadwinners, leading to a decrease in household income. The reduced available income and the social
stigma of having a drug-related death in the family often cause children beneficiaries of the CCT
program to drop out of school. Widowed parents often find new partners, leaving the children with
paternal grandmothers. DRKs are often bookended by other hazards such as flooding, fires, and home
demolitions. The direct effects of these DRKs, compounded with disasters and other socio-economic
shocks, traumatizes CCT families, erodes social cohesion, and pushes them further into poverty. We
conclude with recommendations for the design of support packages to mitigate untoward effects on
families, particularly single parent households.

Human Rights Watch (2017) has condemned the punitive treatment of suspected drug users and
dealers. The concentration of victims in urban poor communities has led international and local groups
such as Amnesty International (2017) and PhilRights (2018) to report that the war on drugs is a war on
the poor. This is supported by the Ateneo School of Government’s (2018) preliminary analysis of 5,021
DRK cases, which found that 47% of those killed were low-level drug suspects and 40% of the killings
were concentrated in poor communities in Metro Manila.

Due to the limitations of poverty data in the Philippines, we focus on beneficiaries of the Philippine
Conditional Cash Transfer (known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps, and herein
referred to as CCT) to study the direct and indirect effects of drug-related killings (henceforth referred to
as DRKs) on the lives of impoverished families in Metro Manila during the first phase of the Duterte
administration’s anti-narcotics policy. While the CCT beneficiaries are only a subset of the universe of
poor households in the Philippines, they are still the most ‘legible’ to policy interventions since
household-level data are encoded in official government databases. The Philippine government
generates poverty data annually, but this is based on an official national poverty line whose definition is
periodically revised and only provides an estimate of the magnitude of poor in the country. The
database of Listahanan, the government’s official list of the poor,6 and that of the CCT program contain
data from actual families that were assessed to be poor.

The Philippine police have killed thousands of mostly urban poor men since the “war on drugs” started
after Duterte took office in June 2016. Thousands more have been murdered by unidentified assailants
that Human Rights Watch research has linked to the police or other authorities. Domestic and
international human rights groups have called on the Human Rights Council to undertake an
independent international investigation into the killings, while the International Criminal Court
continues its preliminary examination into alleged crimes against humanity.

In justifying the police killings of drug suspects, the Philippine government has repeatedly claimed that
drug suspects “fought back.” But research by Human Rights Watch and others have shown that this
claim frequently had no basis and that, in fact, police routinely planted evidence, such as weapons and
drugs on the bodies of victims, to justify their killing. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights, in its June 2020 report, found that many of the guns recovered at the crime scene often had the
same serial numbers, suggesting that these weapons were recycled