Bulacan was recently named as the “bloodiest killing field” in the Philippines as per recent report of Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group as a result of their investigation of the war on drugs under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
In a report of ABS-CBN, Amnesty International has called on the United Nations to conduct an “independent, impartial and effective investigation” citing continuous “extrajudicial executions” since 2016.
Bulacan was cited with the highest number of fatalities; 27 killings between May 2018 to April 2019 and was linked to the transfer of some police commanders who previously supervised “abusive operations” in Manila in the past 18 months.
Outline patterns were observed in the killings based on the report: “They just kill: Ongoing extrajudicial executions and other violations in the Philippines’ war on drugs”.
The killings of drug suspects were described to be using a template of allegedly resisting arrest being described by Forensic Pathologist Dr. Racquel Fortun as consistent and a script.
Additional results of their investigation showed that multiple gunshot wounds were sustained by the alleged drug personality casting doubts to the family of the angle of resistance.
Alleged abduction of suspects of police in plain clothes were also cited on the investigation and others were even beaten as shown on the results of the autopsy.
The group also documented cases of mistaken identities or collateral damage in the implementation of the war on drugs.
This is the second Amnesty International report on the Philippine drug war after the 2017 report noting that police systematically targeted mostly the poor and defenseless people.
According to the PNP, the total number of drug suspects killed in legitimate police operations have now reached 6,600 from July 2016, when the campaign started, up to May 2019.
According to the human rights group, the death toll has already reached 27,000 victims including children who died as collateral damage including the 3-year-old Myka Ulpina who died in a police operation in Rodriguez, Rizal on June 30.
While the Philippine National Police cleared that deaths during the implementation of drug war just reached 6,600 since 2016, Amnesty International Philippines Section Director Butch Olano accused Philippine authorities of obfuscation and misinformation, saying the PNP’s count of 6,600 deaths from legitimate operations accounts for only 6 deaths a day.
