Mothers want justice for killings

Families of 30,000 victims of President Duterte’s war on drugs are taking a case to the International Criminal Court

On 11 May 2017, Crisanto Lozano set off early in the morning from his home in Manila. He was going to renew his security guard licence, a requirement for his profession. By afternoon, he still hadn’t returned, nor was he picking up his phone. Then the family realised that Crisanto’s younger brother, Juan Carlos, was also missing.

The next day, they heard news that two bodies had been discovered nearby. The brothers had been shot dead during a police operation.

“If they died with sickness, maybe I can accept with a free feeling in my heart,” said their mother, Llore Pasco. Instead, she said, they were killed by police officers who were operating with brazen impunity under the instruction of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.

After declaring a so-called “war on drugs”, he called for anyone involved in the drug trade to be killed. “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself, as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” Duterte said a speech after taking office in 2016.

“Of course the policemen shoot and shoot and shoot,” Pasco said. “Because he ordered kill, kill, kill.”

For more than four years, Pasco, a massage therapist and now an activist with the alliance Rise Up for Life and for Rights, has fought for accountability. Along with six other mothers, she publicly submitted a petition to the international criminal court (ICC) calling for Duterte’s indictment.

The ICC prosecutor estimates as many as 30,000 people were killed between July 2016 and March 2019.

Last month, the ICC confirmed that it would proceed with an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed during Duterte’s war on drugs, stating that it appeared to be a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population”. The announcement was “probably the best news on the human rights front since the fall of Marcos”, said Carlos Conde, a senior Philippines researcher at Human Rights Watch.

It was in August 2018 that the mothers first submitted their testimonies to the ICC. The group was apprehensive, said Kristina Conti, a lawyer from the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), who represents the families. “At that time this was the height of the killings,” she said. Many mothers had been unwilling to speak out, fearing more of their relatives could be targeted. Lawyers working on drug war cases have also faced severe security risks. Under Duterte’s presidency, 61 lawyers have been killed. Earlier this year, Angelo Karlo Guillen, also an NUPL lawyer, was stabbed. Fortunately, he survived the attack.

The large number of cases that lawyers work on means it is hard to determine exactly why they have been targeted, Conti said, but many of those killed have been involved in drugs cases: “There is a general fear ... but to take on the defence of drugs cases is asking for the death sentence.”

When the ICC announced an initial inquiry in 2018, Duterte withdrew from the court, although it did not take effect until March 2019, and so the ICC still retains jurisdiction from the start of the Philippines’ membership in 2011 until this point. Since then, Duterte, who is nearing the end of his six-year term limit, has refused to cooperate with the ICC, even stating that he wants to slap the judges.

He recently abandoned a controversial plan to run as vice-president, but many suspect he will be succeeded by his daughter Sara Duterte.

It is believed that only one of the deaths linked to anti-drug operations – the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos – has led to a conviction. Three police were found guilty of murder.

When Duterte came to power, both of Pasco’s sons responded to official calls for drug users to surrender to their local authorities for rehabilitation. Many others had done the same, believing they would be spared from the police crackdowns. The opposite was true. “They were not being helped, they were being killed,” said Rubylin Litao, a coordinator for Rise Up for Life and Rights.

Pasco hopes that other mothers will come forwards. “Why should we be afraid? They should be afraid, because we are telling the truth. This is what is really happening here in the Philippines,” Pasco said. “We have to show courage, go out and show our testimony so that we can win soon in this struggle.”