ICHRP Calls For Transparency In Philippine Congress Investigations Of Drug War And Related Crimes Against Humanity

After years of investigation and mountains of evidence by the International Peoples Tribunals, Investigate PH, the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council, Philippine elected officials through the House of Representatives Quad Committee are finally taking first steps toward acknowledging the depth and breadth of the crimes committed by the Duterte Regime. – Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson

ICHRP recognizes the important role of the House Quad Committee on its first steps in the process of investigating the crimes against humanity perpetrated by state forces in the so-called war on drugs, which is an ongoing war on the poor. The work of the House Quad Committee adds to the existing mountain of evidence of the culpability of the Duterte Regime as a serial violator of basic human rights and international humanitarian law.

Duterte’s recent testimony before the Senate, boasting of extensive rights violations and command culpability for the deaths of tens of thousands of victims, further incriminates him and his murderous regime. “Duterte must be held accountable for gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. He must be indicted, tried and jailed for his crimes in the so-called drug war and his dirty war against political dissent. This is the only way to achieve justice and accountability for the victims and their families,” said Murphy.

For tens of thousands of families who suffered under the bloody “war on drugs”, the killing of political activists, and the killing of New People’s Army (NPA) prisoners and wounded-in-action, justice demands both accountability and transparency from the highest offices of the state. “ICHRP calls on the Marcos Jr. government to authorize full access to evidence and testimonies revealed in the House Quad Committee’s ongoing investigation,” said Murphy.

The shocking revelations of the Quad Committee hearings have spurred on the Duterte Panagutin Network, and ICHRP vigorously supports their call for Duterte to “take responsibility and for the Marcos regime to push accountability and seek justice for the victims ”.

To fully understand the breadth of state complicity in the War on the Poor and the War on Dissent, ICHRP encourages the Quad Committee to investigate not only the role of the police and military in these rights violations but the judicial system’s role and complicity in the institutionalization of impunity, the failure of domestic remedies, and the weaponization of the law to violate rights of the Filipino people. The 1 July 2016 Command Memo of Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa created Project Double Barrel and its component, Project Tokhang, ordering police to conduct “house-to-house visitations” of “suspected drug personalities.” Warrants were not required, and individuals had no legal recourse to challenge their inclusion on target lists. There was no due process further enhancing the climate of impunity. Tens of thousands were killed, and police killers had quotas and were rewarded for each killing.

The July 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act normalised the executive denunciation of civilian political critics as “terrorists”, a process already running at high speed through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), created by Durterte’s Executive Order 70 in December 2018. During Duterte’s presidency, these political repression campaigns caused 422 cases of extrajudicial killing of civilian political activists, and from July 2022 to June 2024, 105 such cases under President Marcos Jr. Those killed were peasant and union organizers, Indigenous Peoples’ leaders, lawyers, journalists and church leaders. This war on dissent severely curtailed democratic space.

Given the revelations so far, the Marcos Jr. administration must restore Philippine membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and cooperate fully with international investigative bodies. Victims’ families and the Filipino people have waited too long for justice. President Marcos Jr.’s administration must take concrete actions to address this legacy of abuse and impunity, and prevent future violations.

We call for the Philippines to rejoin the International Criminal Court!

We call for the Quad Committee to release all evidence to the ICC.

We call for an end to the “war on drugs” – war on the poor.

We call for an end to extra judicial killings, the war on dissent and all associated military operations!

We call for an end to the weaponization of the courts and an end to impunity.

We call for justice for the victims of these crimes, prosecute the perpetrators!

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