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HRW issues warning amid Philippine mayor’s renewed ‘war on drugs’ – JURIST

The mayor of the Philippine city of Davao, Sebastian Duterte, has declared a new ‘war on drugs’, watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Sunday.  In the 24 hours since his announcement, local authorities are reported to have killed at least five people, with an additional seven being killed in the days that followed.Mayor Duterte announced his renewed crackdown on drug use, narcotic trafficking and related activities in late March at a gathering of city police. He delivered a stern warning to drug users and traffickers: “If you don’t stop, if you don’t leave, I will kill you.”Duterte’s decision to impose such swift and stringent measures is allegedly in response to the apparent ‘failure’ of incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to put an end to the violent – and, in some cases, fatal – drug raids that have defined the president’s own ‘war on drugs’ thus far. Duterte and other local leaders, as a result, have resorted to adopting certain measures that directly contradict international human rights law to enforce their anti-drug mandates.Since Duterte became mayor in June 2022, Davao del Sur province has seen more drug-related homicides than any other region in the country – of the 342 murders that occurred from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2o23, a total of 53 are confirmed to have occurred in Davao del Sur. A further 97 people are reported to have died in Davao City as a result of drug-related incidents, most of which were committed by police and anti-drug agents during police operations. HRW has labelled the recent killings in Davao City a “mere spike” in a drug war with “no end in sight.”In 2009, HRW reported on the ‘Davao Death Squad’, a covert group believed to have carried out numerous extrajudicial killings during Rodrigo Duterte’s tenure as mayor of Davao City. When Duterte Sr. was elected to the presidential office in 2016, police began conducting large-scale drug raids and operations which ultimately resulted in the deaths of many people, primarily impoverished drug users and small-scale dealers. His son now stands accused of “sparking another round of police summary executions” by reinvigorating his father’s abusive war on drugs.In 2017, a lawyer from the Philippines, Jude Sabio, filed a complaint against then-President  Duterte with the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing him of authorizing extrajudicial killings during the war on drugs. Sabio asked the court to hold Duterte Sr. and other government officials criminally responsible for crimes against humanity. Duterte Sr., however, has maintained his innocence, and continues to deny any involvement with the Duterte Death Squad, claiming that all actions were well within the parameters of Philippine law.The ICC is currently investigating the killings as part of a broader probe into possible crimes against humanity in the Philippines.