The Philippines' deadly drug war
Bodies have been turning up in cities all over the Philippines ever since the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte, launched his controversial war on drugs this year — so many that one local newspaper had to create a “Kill List” just to keep track.
Dealers and addicts are being shot by police or slain by unidentified gunmen in mysterious, gangland-style murders taking place at night. Their bodies dumped on highways in the rain, curled in pools of blood in the slums. Some were found tied up, with masking tape plastered across their faces. Some were draped with cardboard signs that warned, “I’m a pusher. Don’t Be Like Me.”
“When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them. The funeral parlors will be packed.”
— Duterte at a rally in the northern city of Lingayen, detailing plans to fight the drug trade, March 15.
Warning: Some graphic images of injury or death follow.
Here, policemen check the gun recovered from one of two unidentified drug suspects after they were shot dead by police for reportedly trying to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, September 6, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Duterte called it a life-or-death threat to the nation, and the nation believed him.
The Philippines was at risk of becoming a “narco state,” he said. And a weary electorate, exasperated by decades of crime and corruption, agreed.
Something had to be done.
After Duterte was sworn into office June 30, he directed police to launch a massive new anti-drug operation nationwide.
It was called “Double Barrel.”
Armed security forces take part in a drug raid in Manila, October 7, 2016.
Vigilante killing in Manila
A woman cradles the body of her husband, who was killed on a street by a vigilante group, according to police, in a spate of drug related killings in Pasay city, Metro Manila, July 23, 2016. A sign on the cardboard found near the body reads: “Pusher Ako,” which translates to “I am a drug pusher.”
Philippine drug war
The death toll from the Philippines’ vicious war on drugs initiated by President Duterte has climbed to over 3,500.
The violence isn’t isolated to Filipinos. Maria Aurora Moynihan, the daughter of a British Baron, became one of the highest profile victims since Duterte took office in June. Moynihan was found shot dead on the streets of Quezon City, Manila on September 10 with a sign reading “Drug pusher to celebrities, you’re next,” near her body.
A gun is left in a pool of blood at the scene where a man identified to be on a drug watch-list was killed in a shooting involving police in Parola slum in Manila, early October 11, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Police swat teams guard the entrance to a shanty community during an early drug raid, which killed an alleged drug suspect on August 20, 2016 in Manila.
While security forces carried out raids and rounded up drug suspects, police drew up “watch-lists” of suspected addicts and dealers, aided by local officials, civil society leaders and residents.
Philippine drug war
A mother of a victim of a summary execution clutches a man after learning of her son’s death on September 7, 2016 in Manila.
Philippine drug war
Police take out a bag of Marijuana from the pocket of one of two unidentified drug suspects after they were shot dead by police as they reportedly tried to evade a checkpoint in Quezon city, north of Manila, September 6, 2016.
On September 30, controversial President Duterte likened his deadly crime war to Hitler’s efforts to exterminate Jews. He declared he was “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts.
Philippine drug war
Inmates sleeping on an open basketball court inside the Quezon City jail in Manila, July 21, 2016. Severe congestion in the jails has been made worse by Duterte’s drug war.
Philippine drug war
Police statistics show an astounding rise in the number of drug suspects shot dead by security forces: just 68 in the first half of the year, compared to 1,578 since Duterte took office.
Police have linked as many as 2,151 murders to the drug trade or classified them as “unexplained.” At least 864 of them were carried out by motorcycle-riding gunmen — a favored tactic employed by vigilantes against drug suspects.
There is no shortage of theories about who the vigilantes are: drug syndicates killing their own, rogue police offing informants, state-sponsored death squads.
People look at the body of a tricycle driver, who police officials claimed was an alleged drug user, shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Manila on September 24, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Men hold babies during a drug raid in Quezon City, Metro Manila, October 12, 2016.
Manila - Bloodied doll
A policeman holds a bag with a bloodied doll and other belongings of a 17-year-old girl who was killed along with her friend by unknown motorcycle-riding gunmen in an alley in Manila, early October 26, 2016. According to the police, a sign on cardboard reading “Tulak ka, hayop ka,” which translates to “You are a (drug) pusher, you are an animal,” was found with the body of the girl’s friend.
Duterte extended his campaign while the International human rights advocates condemned the killings as out of control.
Philippine drug war
Morgue workers ride a trolley on railroad tracks to bring out two dead bodies of alleged drug dealers, killed in an alleged shootout with police on August 17, 2016 in Manila.
Human rights groups have called on the government to end the nightly drug raids and investigate extrajudicial killings. In return, President Duterte has lashed out at critics and threatened to withdraw from the United Nations.
Philippine drug war
A police officer shows the bullet that he said was stopped by his body armor during a shootout with four alleged drug users in Manila, early October 14, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Activists light candles during a vigil for victims of the extrajudicial killings in the government’s drug war in front of a church in Manila on September 16, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Drug suspects are rounded up during an anti-illegal drugs operation at an informal settlers community at the Manila Islamic Center in Manila on October 7, 2016.
Philippine deadly drug war
A chick and some food and drinks are seen on top of the coffin of Marcelo Salvador at his family home in Las Pinas, south of Manila, September 8, 2016. Salvador’s addiction began when he was introduced to the methamphetamine known as “shabu” locally. He had reportedly quit priot to being killed.
Many superstitious Filipinos believe that putting a chick on a coffin of a person slain due to an attack or conflict will help hasten the attainment of justice while placing food on the casket help them attain a smooth journey in the afterlife.
Philippine drug war
A woman talks to a relative, one of the residents arrested during a drug buy-bust operation, while waiting to be brought to a police station for verification at the former landfill in Manila on September 30, 2016.
Philippine drug war
An alleged drug user is detained after a police raid on a drug dean at a shanty community beside a dumpsite in Manila, October 5, 2016.
A process called “surrendering” has drawn about 700,000 drug users so far to turn themselves in. Most have been released after acknowledging their crimes, giving up the names of others involved in the narcotics trade, and pledging never to use again.
Philippine drug war
People who turned themselves in take an oath before local authorities, led by Mayor Thony Halili (back R-facing camera) during a mass surrender of some 1,000 alleged drug users and pushers in the town of Tanauan, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Manila on July 18, 2016.
Philippine drug war
With prisons already crowded and a justice system so broken that drug cases could take a decade, Duterte argued successfully for another, quicker way. It was modeled in part on a brutal anti-crime campaign he spearheaded while mayor of the southern city of Davao, where he rode a Harley-Davidson and cultivated a New Sheriff in Town image that earned him nicknames like “Duterte Harry” and “The Punisher.
The campaign was fought not just by state security forces, but by motorcycle-riding assassins known as the “Davao Death Squads” who massacred more than 1,000 people. Human Rights Watch says the grim wave of extrajudicial killing was directed by active duty police and former officers. Only a handful of perpetrators were convicted.
Police officers investigate the killing of an alleged drug dealer, his face covered with packing tape and a placard reading “I’m a pusher,” on a street in Manila, July 8, 2016.
Philippine drug war
Police forensic teams examine the body of a summary execution victim with his head wrapped in packaging tape on September 21, 2016 in Manila.
Philippine drug war
Relatives grieve their lost one, an alleged drug user/dealer gunned down by unidentified gunmen in Manila, September 24, 2016.
Philippine drug war
A once busy street remains empty in Manila on September 8, 2016. The wave of violence created by the war on drugs has left people fearful to be out at night.
In November 2016, the U.S. State Department halted the planned sale of approximately 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippine national police because of concerns over human rights violations in the drug war.
Phlippine drug war
Inmates watch as drug suspects are processed inside a police station on October 12, 2016 in Manila.
Statistics from the government’s Dangerous Drugs Board showed the estimated rate of methamphetamine use has actually dropped from 6.7 million in 2004 to 1.7 million today. It didn’t matter that this rate — an estimated 2 percent of Filipinos — was no higher than that of other countries like the United States or Australia in recent years, according to United Nations figures. It didn’t matter that drug wars mounted in countries like Thailand or Colombia or America had miserably failed.
Philippine drug war
Relatives stand beside the body of a police intelligence officer killed during a botched drug raid which also killed three drug suspects on August 20, 2016 in Manila.
Deadly drug war
Family and friends grieve as they pay their last respects to alleged drug user Robert Manuel Jr. during funeral rites at Manila’s North Cemetery, September 12, 2016. Manuel and two other men were killed by police during a buy-bust operation.
Text by CBS/Associated Press