How many people have been killed in Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs?

RODRIGO DUTERTE ran for president in 2016 as the foul-mouthed defender of the common man. He promised increased government spending and a proud new foreign policy. But above all, he declared war on drugs, and those who deal in them. “If you destroy my country, I will kill you. If you destroy our children, I will kill you”, he warned on his second day in office. Since then his campaign has led to thousands of deaths. Just how many is the subject of growing scrutiny.

In an effort to rid every barangay, or neighbourhood, of drugs, police officers in the Philippines hunt down suspects and demand their surrender. According to the official version of events, armed traffickers open fire, provoking the cops into retaliation. If the suspects are shot dead the authorities claim it is lawful as the police acted in self-defence. An alternative version suggests that police gun down in cold blood addicts or small-time dealers, and then plant guns and drugs on the victims. On other occasions civilian vigilantes do the shooting and some are alleged to have links with the police. (Since 2016 civilians suspected of drug crimes killed by other civilians are often recorded under a much broader category of “deaths under investigation”, or DUI.)

The number of killings has fallen dramatically since the early days of the war on drugs. But estimates about the true number of victims vary. According to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, during 216,138 anti-illegal drugs operations conducted between July 2016 and September 2021, 311,686 people were arrested and 6,201 were killed by the police. (This number excludes those categorised as drug-related DUIs.) A report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that, even counting conservatively, at least 8,663 people had been killed. Documents submitted as part of an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into whether the killings, and Mr Duterte’s encouragement of them, constitute a crime against humanity, put the number of civilian casualties much higher, at between 12,000 and 30,000. Leni Robredo, a critic of Mr Duterte, who is also vice-president and head of an anti-drugs task force, has called for the police to be more transparent about the death toll.

This month the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), an NGO that collects information about political violence, published an updated version of its comprehensive database on the Philippines. Based on data from nearly 40 sources, including local and international newspapers in both English and Filipino, the ACLED concluded that since 2016 at least 7,742 civilians have been killed in anti-drug operations—25% higher than the police figure. (The ACLED includes deaths at the hands of the police and vigilantes, but its methodology excludes victims who were themselves armed. For this reason the ACLED also considers this figure to be conservative.)

The ACLED data also show that early on in the campaign, vigilantes were responsible for roughly half of the deaths, with the rest attributed to the police. But by 2021 the proportion attributed to the police had risen to around 80%, perhaps because of a growing backlash to the vigilantes. Their data also show that violence is moving out of the capital. In 2016 Manila accounted for 45% of the national total of killings, in the second half of 2021 just 8% of deaths happened there.

On November 20th the ICC halted its investigation at the request of the Philippines, which has launched a review into police’s involvement in dozens of killings with a promise to investigate thousands more. Mr Duterte’s term is coming to an end but the ICC case against him may be restarted. ■

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