As Rodrigo Duterte campaigned for president he advocated a simple approach to fighting criminals: Kill them all, he said to both gasps and loud applause. Shooting deaths before Duterte won the May 9 election averaged about two a week in the Philippines. Immediately after his victory, one person was killed by police or vigilantes every day. Around the time Duterte took the presidential oath of office on June 30, it had risen to three a day. By July 21, not even a full month into Dutertes term,it increased to 10 a day. In all, since Duterte assumed office, police or vigilantes have killed between 400 and 770 alleged criminals.
Those killed by the vigilantes are usually poor, some drug addicts, and some labeled drug dealers. The killers shoot from motorcycles, drop a cardboard sign with something like addict or drug pusher scribbled on it, then speed away. Killings like these went from being rare, to becoming daily occurrences, to reaching double digits every day.
The killings werent normal. All were tied to Dutertes call for the extermination of the countrys undesirablesthe addicts and criminals. He had promised to fill Manila Bay with their bodies. Within a week of Duterte officially taking office, the Inquirer was already writing about the killings in a fatigued tone: The killingsand the explanations given by the police to justify themcontinue to pile up. Officers killed two suspected drug dealers while they were handcuffed. Vigilantes killed a man who had mocked the new national police chief. They shot up a cemetery and killed five people, including a mother and her son celebrating a birthday, leaving behind one sign for all of them. They killed a teenager feeding his dog, who seemingly had no ties to drugs; and police shot and killed a suspected drug dealer because he tried to grab an officers gun. Journalists like Lerma, the photographer with the Inquirer, chronicled many of these killings. But until July 23, when Siaron, the sidecar driver, was killed, the deaths attracted little attention.
The officer claims he is part of one of 10 newly formed and highly secretive police special operations teams, each with 16 members. He claims the teams are coordinated to execute a list of targets: suspected drug users, dealers and criminals. The killings mostly take place at night, he says, with the officers hooded and dressed in all black. They set their watches, giving themselves one minute or two to extract target individuals from their houses and kill on the spot swift, precise, no witnesses. He claims they then dump the bodies in the next town or under a bridge or they plaster masking tape around the head of the corpse and place a cardboard sign on the body that reads drug lord or pusher. We put placards in order for the media, in order for those investigating [the] bodies to redirect their investigation, he explains, leading them to think: Why should I investigate this guy, he is a drug pusher, he is a rapist, never mind with that one, I will just investigate the others. Its a good thing for him that happened to him.
More than 7,700 people have been killed in the latest crackdown, some 2,500 in what police say are shootouts during raids and sting operations. Most of the rest are under investigation and activists believe many were extrajudicial killings. Lascanas said death squad members in Davao got 20,000 to 100,000 pesos ($398 to $1,990) per hit, depending on the targets value. Some members, he said, were former Communist rebels. He confessed to the unsolved murder of a Davao radio show host who was staunchly critical of Duterte. Lascanas detailed his involvement in the bombing of a mosque and the killing of the family of a suspected kidnapper. The victims included a pregnant woman, a small boy and an elderly person. Both attacks were ordered by Duterte, he said. This is how it began, all the killings we did in Davao, whether we bury or we throw in the sea, we are being paid by Mayor Duterte, he said.
You tell me. A cautionary tale for those who'd take the claims of a murderer at face value.