“The dead cannot cry out for
justice. It is the duty of the living to
PHILIPPINE JUSTICE
SYSTEM
Extra-Judicial Killing
On the 30th of June 2016, former Davao Mayor Rodrigo
Roa Duterte was inaugurated as the Philippines’ 16 th
president and at the moment of being granted
government sovereignty, he started to call for a
nationwide “war on drugs”, with the estimated death
count on the year 2018 ranging from 12,000 to 20,000
people - including
children. It has also
been infamous for the
fact that the details of
many killings have
been known to be
manipulated by the
police in order to
avoid answering for
innocent casualties motivated by either mistaken
allegations or personal vendetta. The alarming issue
gained the concern of the U.N. Human Rights Council,
with U.N. Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet even
stating that it is a serious matter for every country. This
range is not even finalized according to the Human
Rights Watch researcher Carlos Conde. Conde claimed
that knowing the exact death toll is extremely
challenging, as “outside the police, there’s no one entity
doing the tracking. There are NGOs that are trying but
they can only do it based on media reports.” The war on
drugs quickly rendered Filipinos divided both on political
and moral perspectives. In less than a month, the then
newly-elected President Duterte’s war on drugs had
turned into a global issue, igniting various foreign
humanitarian and religious bodies’ intervention such as
the direct criticism of the 71-year-old Australian nun
Sister Patricia Fox. Sister Fox criticized the war on
drugs, calling it a “reign of terror” along with other
Philippine policies that the President asked to be
implemented. Her statements were not taken well at all
do so for them. ”
- Lois McMaster Bujold
-
by the President, going so far as to downgrade Sister
Fox’s missionary visa to only a tourist visa and detaining
her for one night. Due to this unfortunate incident and
other issues of the Duterte administration, various other
human rights groups were quick to point out the unfair
bias of the President and his administration towards
police, state security, and paramilitary privilege while
deeming those who have been killed as rightfully dead
despite the lack of substantial evidence for most of the
allegations. It shows the ignorance towards basic human
rights through the prevalence of corruption and abuse of
power in the government
and its agents. Any entity,
individual or group, backed
by the President and his
underlings is protected and
legally immune from the
consequences of the law
unless stated otherwise.
People are being killed by
the police, and the president's response to this is to
pamper the police even more. Only when the case is
impossible to defend from everyone's point of view will
the president act according to what he personally finds to
be lawful or acceptable.
The lack of legal control for the police force to commit
unlawful killings under the privilege provided to them by
President Rodrigo Duterte's implementation of EJK or
Extra-Judicial Killing has been alarming legal entities
since the privilege’s inception. e President Duterte has
shown his inclination towards protecting the police force
without question, even when the police themselves have
broken the law. This stands to an unjust opposition to the
President’s reaction when it comes to non-law-abiding
police killings as the President has refused time and time
again to even bat an eye for the heinous, wrongful deaths.