MANILA – International non-government organization Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report revealing alleged abuse of power by policemen carrying out President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial war on drugs, suggesting that some policemen were involved in so-called extrajudicial killings.

The New York-based human rights organization examined 24 incidents, from as early as June 8, 2016 up to January 14, 2017, which resulted in 32 deaths.

Below is the HRW report on the killings:

Police Responsibility for Extrajudicial Killings and “Vigilante Killings”

Police killings of drug suspects are not a new phenomenon in the Philippines, but have skyrocketed under the Rodrigo Duterte administration. Between January 1, 2016 and June 15, 2016 police killed a total of 68 suspects in “anti-drug” operations. Yet, as this report goes to publication Philippine National Police data indicates that since July 1, 2016 police have killed 2,555 “suspected drug personalities,” while the police classify 3,603 killings in the same time period as “deaths under investigation.” Police categorize an additional 922 killings as “cases where investigation has concluded,” but have not provided details of the results of those investigations.

Following President Duterte’s inauguration, the Philippines National Police launched a nationwide anti-drug operation named “PNP Oplan—Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang.” Working at the national, regional, and local level, “Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang” aimed to create “watch lists” of known drug users and drug pushers, who would then be visited by local police and/or municipal authorities and urged to “surrender.” The term “double barrel” meant to indicate that police operations would target both “drug pushers and users of illegal drugs alike.” Tok-hang translates as “knock and plead,” referring to the house visits done by police or municipal authorities to urge individuals to surrender. However, the “Operation Double Barrel Project Tokhang” also had a more violent element, as documented in this report: the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in faked “buy-bust” encounters with the police, and so-called vigilante killings by “unknown” gunmen.

The following 24 incidents resulting in 32 deaths are not a scientific sampling of those killings. However, they share similarities with the vast majority of the cases reported in the media. The killings have largely occurred in impoverished urban areas, many in the National Capital Region of Metro Manila but in other cities as well. Those killed have been typically been people struggling to make ends meet for themselves and their families—work is irregular if they have work at all. In many of the cases, family members acknowledged that their relative was a drug user—typically of shabu, a methamphetamine—or a dealer, or used to be one. But none of the cases investigated fit the category of big-time drug lords—they were people at the bottom of the drug chain.

In the days before a killing, a targeted individual might receive a visit from an official from the local barangay (or neighborhood), informing them that they are on a drug “watch list” drawn up by barangay officials and the police, putting them at grave risk. This might cause the individual to lay low, avoid all outside activities or turn themselves in to the police—all to no avail. Or there might be no warning at all.

As told to Human Rights Watch by relatives, neighbors, and other witnesses, the assailants typically worked in groups of two, four, or a dozen. They would wear civilian clothes, often all black, and shielded their faces with balaclava-style headgear or other masks, and baseball caps or helmets. They would carry handguns. They would frequently travel by motorcycle—two to a bike. Often there would be a van, invariably white, and sometimes containing markings signifying a police vehicle. There typically would be banging on doors and barging into rooms, but the assailants would not identify themselves nor provide warrants. Family members often reported hearing beatings and their loved one begging for their lives. The shootings could happen immediately, behind closed doors or on the street, or the gunmen might take the suspect away, where minutes later shots would ring out and local residents would find the body, often with hands tied or the head wrapped in plastic.

Local residents often said they saw uniformed police in the vicinity before the incident, securing the perimeter—but even if not visible before a shooting, special crime scene investigators would arrive within minutes. A previously unknown .38 caliber handgun and a packet of shabu almost always would be found next to the body. And instead of fleeing from the police, the gunmen would mingle with them. Human Rights Watch is not aware of a single arrest made in connection with any of the killings we documented.

Human Rights Watch examined police reports in virtually all of the cases we investigated. The accounts differed markedly from those provided by the relatives we interviewed, yet they were very similar to each other. The suspect was invariably described as a dealer who attempted to sell to undercover officers conducting a “buy-bust” operation. Specialized local anti-drug units called Station Anti-Illegal Drug Special Operations Task Units (SAID-SOTU) were usually involved. According to the reports, the suspect, after being put under arrest and sometimes handcuffed, allegedly pulled out a weapon and sought to shoot the police. In every case, however, the suspect was killed and none of the arresting officers were harmed, with the sole exception of one case in which an officer is alleged to have been shot in the leg. In most cases, the police “found” shabu on or near the victim’s corpse.

While the Philippine National Police have publicly sought to distinguish between suspects killed while resisting police arrest and killings by “unknown gunmen” or “vigilantes,” Human Rights Watch found no such distinction in the cases investigated. In several cases we investigated, the police dismissed allegations of involvement and instead classified such killings as “found bodies” or “deaths under investigation” when only hours before the suspects had been in police custody. Such cases call into question government assertions that the majority of killings have been committed by vigilantes "fed up with the current justice system" or rival drug gangs.

Whether or not the unidentified assailants doing the actual killing were police officers or merely agents of the police, the similar modus operandi in these operations shows planning and coordination by the police, and in some cases, local civilian officials. These were not killings by individual officers or by “vigilantes” operating separately from the authorities. The cases investigated in this report suggest that police involvement in the killings of drug suspects extends far beyond the officially acknowledged cases of police killings in “buy-bust” operations. Furthermore, the government’s failure to arrest—let alone prosecute—a single police officer for their role in any of the “war-on-drugs” killings that Duterte has encouraged and instigated sends a message that those involved need not fear being held to account, and that future killings can be carried out with impunity.

Edwin Ronda, June 8
Barangay Caingin, Purok One, Santa Rosa, Laguna province

While Duterte was inaugurated on June 30, 2016, his election victory a month earlier, on May 30, led to an immediate uptick in police killings of drug suspects, many of them under circumstances that indicated extrajudicial killings.

Edwin Ronda, 30, was a construction worker who lived with his parents in Santa Rosa City about 40 kilometers south of Manila. When his father suspected him of being involved in drug dealing in 2015, he surrendered his son to police custody. Ronda’s subsequent arrest and prosecution resulted in a one-year prison term that ended in February 2016. Ronda’s family believed that he had steered away from drugs following his release as he was aware that his staunchly anti-drugs family would again turn him over to the police if he again dealt drugs.

A relative told Human Rights Watch that Ronda went out drinking with a group of friends on the evening of June 7 in nearby town of Biñan. At about 5 a.m. on June 8, Ronda took a moto-taxi home with a friend.[79] On their way, while in the area of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines at Santa Rosa, they passed a white van with at least three plainclothes armed men inside, who stopped the moto taxi, and identified themselves as policemen. Ronda’s friend ran away, but the armed men detained Ronda and told the driver of the moto taxi to leave.

Ronda’s family later learned from his friend that the armed men took Ronda into the van and drove off, but apparently remained in the vicinity of the university. Ronda’s relative told Human Rights Watch that people in the area heard gunshots. When they went to investigate, they found Ronda’s body near the university’s basketball court just 100 meters from where he had been detained by the police. He had a gunshot wound to the temple and what looked like ligature marks near his neck. A .38 caliber handgun and packets of drugs were found near his body.[82] The policemen and the white van were not at the scene when the body was discovered, but Scene of Crimes Operatives (SOCO) investigative officers arrived soon after.

The police report of the incident, signed by the chief of police of the Santa Rosa City Police Station in Laguna, offered a version of events inconsistent with the witness account. The report states that police killed Ronda during a “buy-bust” operation, alleging that he was shot after he grew suspicious and drew a gun on undercover police officers. The report makes no mention of his detention by the officers in the van:

Investigation conducted disclosed that Intel operatives of this station conducted an anti-illegal drugs operation (buy-bust) operation led by [intelligence officers] against the suspect after police acted as a poseur buyer was to purchase one (1) piece of small heat transparent plastic sachet containing [shabu]. The suspect who seeing the poseur buyer is a police officer armed with a [.38 caliber handgun] suddenly opened fired to the intel operatives forcing them to returned fire wherein the former was hit during exchange of fire and sustained gunshot wound on his body.

The police further claimed that the wounded Ronda was taken to the hospital by a police “rescue team” where he was declared dead, and that a .38 caliber handgun with two fired cartridges was found at the scene by SOCO police investigators.

The family blames the killing on President Duterte’s repeated calls on police to target drug dealers during his election campaign. According to a relative:

Edwin was killed after Duterte was elected, but before he became president. Edwin’s killing was a gift to the President, you see the killing campaign started even before he took [office]. It was like a gift from the police officers to the president [elect].

Oliver Dela Cruz, July 1
Barangay Pala-Pala, San Ildefonso, Bulacan province

Oliver Dela Cruz, 43, was a rice and vegetable farmer in rural Bulacan province north of Manila. However, after becoming ill from lung disease, he no longer could do the vigorous labor required for farming. According to his family, in 2015 he turned to dealing shabu to try and make enough money to feed his six children, and for the medical treatment for both his own illness and a son’s hepatitis. When the killings of drug dealers began, his family begged him to stop dealing, but Dela Cruz told them he had no other way to support his family.

On the evening of June 30, Dela Cruz went to play cards at his neighbor’s house. Family members told Human Rights Watch that at about 1 a.m. on July 1, a group of five masked armed men in civilian clothes broke down the door of the neighbor’s house and rushed inside. Awakened by screaming, the Dela Cruz family rushed outside. A relative said:

The other two people inside the neighbor’s house were grabbed by the armed men, and told to go outside. Oliver remained inside, we could see him kneeling in a surrendering position. The men grabbed him and slammed him into a concrete wall several times, and then they threw him out of the door, to the outside. We saw the shooting, we were just there. Oliver’s face was bleeding from being hit, and he was begging them for mercy when he was shot, he was just lying on the ground at that time. He did not have a gun or try to grab a gun—he was already badly beaten and couldn’t have fought back even if he had wanted to.

Family members who witnessed the incident said that uniformed police officers and SOCO officers were already waiting just outside the neighborhood while the masked men carried out the killing:

The van of the local police and the van of the SOCO investigators were already parked on the main road outside the neighborhood even before the killing happened. The five killers came on foot from the main road, they [had] arrived there on motorcycles.… The killers stayed even when the SOCO came. Two of the ones wearing masks spoke to the uniformed police and the SOCO, so they were all together.

Media accounts of the incident said the killing resulted from a police drug sting.[92] However, a police report of the incident does not mention any police involvement in the killing, stating only that “an armed encounter transpired in Barangay Pala-Pala…that resulted in the death of one (1) Oliver Dela Cruz,” suggesting a killing by “vigilantes.”

Ogie Sumangue, July 3
Barangay 621, Zone 26, Binondo, Manila

Ogie Sumangue, 19, lived with his wife in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown, and was unemployed and dependent on the financial support of his sister. According to the police, Sumangue was involved in drug dealing.

According to family members who witnessed the incident, at about 7:30 p.m. on July 3 a group of about 10 to 15 men in plainclothes arrived at his home on motorcycles and in a white van. Several ordered his pregnant wife to leave the house, and stayed inside with Sumangue. The wife suddenly heard several gunshots from inside the room. Soon thereafter, the men turned off the lights inside the house and then left, closing the door. They then departed. Uniformed police officers together with journalists arrived at the scene soon thereafter.

The police, in their report on the operation, claim that officers from Station Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operation Task Unit (SAID-SOTU) killed Sumangue inside his home during a “buy-bust” operation:

Sensing the presence of the [officers], the suspect fired at their direction and hit one of the [officers] who was fortunately wearing a bullet [proof] vest. An exchange of gunfire ensued, killing the suspect, in whose possession police found six sachets containing drugs, live bullets and a gun.

Uniformed police showed Sumangue’s relatives his body in the house immediately after the shooting, and what appeared to be a .45 caliber handgun next to his body. Family members told Human Rights Watch that Sumangue did not possess a gun and therefore could not possibly have attempted to shoot at the police. They believe the police planted the gun on Sumangue’s body in an attempt to justify his killing.

“He cannot even pay the rent, his sister paid the rent for him,” a relative told Human Rights Watch, questioning where he would have obtained the money to get a gun.

Renato Badando, July 7
Barangay 621, Santa Maria, Manila

In 2008, police arrested Renato Badando, 41, on suspicion of involvement in a robbery, for which he subsequently spent nearly eight years in prison.[100] After his release around March 2016, he found occasional work operating a trolley along the railroad tracks where he lived in a shack with his wife. He was an occasional shabu user “when there was money to buy it,” but not a dealer, according to relatives.

On the night of July 7, a large police anti-drug operation took place in Badando’s neighborhood, waking up his wife. Badando told her not to worry, as he had not been listed on the neighborhood’s watch list, and urged her to go back to bed. An hour later, a policeman knocked on their shack and identified himself, and asked about the whereabouts of some of their neighbors.

Approximately 30 minutes after the first police visit, a group of seven armed and masked men in civilian dress kicked open the door of Badando’s shack. They ordered Badando to come with them “for checking,” allowing Badando, who had been sleeping, to put on a shirt and take his wallet with identification.

Soon thereafter, his relatives heard a gunshot, followed by several more, and rushed to a nearby riverside dock. By the time they arrived at the scene just minutes later, the media and uniformed police had already arrived, and the plainclothes men who had arrested him—evidently police officers—were standing over Badando’s body.

Police officials told the relatives that they found a .45 caliber handgun, packets of shabu, and money on Badando. However, a relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch disputes this claim, stressing that Badando had been taken by the police from his own home:

“When he was taken from the house, he had been half-naked sleeping, and the police allowed him to put on a shirt and take his wallet with ID. We don’t own a gun, and we don’t have so much shabu, and we don’t have money. All of that was planted [by the police].”

Edward Sentorias, July 8
Don Bosco, Tondo, Manila

Edward Sentorias, 34, a father of three boys, was jobless after being injured in a welding accident. According to his relatives, both he and his live-in partner were shabu users, and lived in the house that belonged to his partner’s parents, who were in prison for drug dealing.[105] The relatives believe the police incorrectly assumed that Sentorias and his partner had taken over the drug dealing business of her parents. When the government’s Operation Double Barrel began, Sentorias rejected his relatives’ pleading to surrender to the local officials, telling them that the local officials were shabu addicts long before he was.

On the morning of July 8, Sentorias and his partner were having breakfast when a group of five uniformed police officers knocked on their door. When his partner opened the door, the policemen grabbed her and her 2-year-old son and pulled them outside, saying they had come to talk to Sentorias. The police officers then rushed into the home and almost immediately, gunshots rang out. The police officers then blocked Sentorias’ partner from re-entering their home.

According to the police report, the police recovered drugs from Sentorias’ partner when she was outside, and then entered the house to arrest Sentorias who confronted them with a gun and was gunned down by them:

[Sentorias] sense[d] the presence of herein policemen pulled his [.38 caliber] revolver and pointed to [a police officer]. Sensing that his life is in danger, [the officer] fired his service firearm and shots the former hitting EDWARD SENTORIAS Y BULAWAN on the different parts of the body and fell down on the pavement and died on the spot.

Relatives of Sentorias dispute the police account that he was armed, and said that they witnessed the police placing the incriminating evidence. A relative of the victim who reached the scene of the shooting almost immediately afterwards told Human Rights Watch:

We were waiting for the SOCO [police investigators] to arrive. I saw one of the police go inside with an aluminum briefcase. Out of curiosity I went to look through the window. I saw the officer open the briefcase and he took out the gun and some sachets, and placed them there. I went back to where I was, and was totally shocked. I couldn’t even complain. If we go complain, what is our chance against the authorities? The government declared the evidence was found inside his house, so it is their word against ours. I have no reason to lie about this. That is when I realized not everyone being killed is guilty of fighting back. If they don’t find evidence inside the house, they need to fabricate it, so they don’t get busted.

Henry Francisco, July 20
Barangay Bagbaguin, Bagong Nayon, Valenzuela, Metro Manila

Henry Francisco was, by his relatives’ own admission, a drug dealer. For years, his relatives had tried to get him to stop using and dealing drugs, convincing him to go to drug rehab in 2003. Police arrested him in June 2015 for drug dealing, but according to his relatives he managed to avoid prosecution with a 10,000-peso (US$200) bribe to the police.

When “Operation Double Barrel” began in June, Francisco surrendered to the local police, according to his relatives. However, he would not reveal the name of his supplier because he had a relationship with her and he wanted to protect her. Police released him a few hours later but Francisco, realizing he was a marked man because of his refusal to cooperate fully, tried to go into hiding. The Valenzuela police department listed Francisco as the number one suspect on their watch list of drug personalities. In mid-July, police officers raided his house looking for him, but he was not at home.

After hiding at a friend’s home, Francisco returned to his home on the night of July 20, and drank some beers with friends in the street outside his home. About midnight, he told his friends he was going to bed.

A relative told Human Rights Watch that Francisco’s friends informed them that almost immediately after Francisco entered his home, a dozen men in civilian clothes arrived in the area in a white van. The men, whom later police reports confirm were police officers, ordered Francisco’s friends, who were still drinking in the street, to leave the area. The men then entered Francisco’s room by kicking down the door, and soon thereafter gunshots rang out, killing Francisco.

The police report suggests that Francisco’s death was part of a “buy-bust” drug operation, and that undercover police killed him after he opened fire on them:

During the operation, [a police officer] posed as the poseur buyer together with [a police officer] as backup. [The police officer] handed over to Francisco the marked money in exchange for the shabu. They were about to buy sensing that suspect had a transaction with the police officer he drew his firearm tucked from his back waistline at this juncture Francisco leveled the said firearm to [the officer] and shot the later one but missed in return they retaliate and shot Francisco twice hitting him on the right portion of his chest that caused instantaneous death.

According to the police report, police recovered at the scene an ARMSCOR .38 caliber revolver, loaded with five live bullets and a misfired bullet, as well as shabu and drug paraphernalia.[119] Francisco’s relatives do not dispute the police claim that Francisco was involved in drug dealing. However, the relative interviewed by Human Rights Watch challenged the police version of his death, noting that Francisco had gone to sleep in his room after leaving the company of his friends, and that the police kicked down the door of his room—which is inconsistent with a drug buy-bust sting described in the police report.

Napoleon Miras Ai-Ai, July 24
Barangay Antipona, Bocaue, Bulacan province

Napoleon Miras, 27, was a tricycle driver whose live-in partner was a drug dealer. He frequently drove her around to make drug deliveries. He also became a shabu user and small-time dealer himself.

According to relatives with whom he lived, on July 24 his live-in partner went to see her supplier to purchase shabu. Police followed her on her way back home, and soon after her return at about 11:30 a.m. a team of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents stormed the house, shouting “Police! Police! Nobody move!” Local uniformed police secured the perimeter of the home. Miras tried to hide under the floor of the home, but when the police asked for him by name, his father told him to surrender to the police and he did so.

The PDEA agents took Miras outside, but then decided to take him back into the home and take him upstairs while they searched the home for drugs.[124]. A few minutes later, the family members, who were downstairs on their knees with their hands behind their heads, heard eight gunshots upstairs. One relative said: “A neighbor later told us that he could see inside the room where Napoleon was, and he was also on his knees with his hands up when he was gunned down.” After the shooting, the PDEA agents and police waited for the SOCO investigators to arrive.

According to the police report, the police “conducted anti-illegal drugs buy-bust operation against Napoleon Miras Ai-Ai (alias “Nono”), which led in the death of suspect ‘Nono’ in a shootout after he initiated firefight against [police] operatives.” The police report claims a .38 caliber revolver, live ammunition and one spent shell, and an estimated 4 grams of shabu and two marked 100 pesos bills from the drug bust were recovered from Miras’s possession.

His family contested the police version of events, asserting that Miras had not sold any drugs to the police team, as he remained home prior to and during the incident, had not engaged in a firefight, and did not own any guns.

Aaron Joseph Paular, August 3
Zamora Interlink, Santa Mesa, Manila

Aaron Joseph Paular, 24, the father of a 3-year-old girl, found irregular work as a house painter. His relatives said he was an occasional shabu user, but was not listed on the neighborhood watch list as a known drug user or dealer. He had not received any warnings from local officials about his drug use.

On August 3, close to midnight, Paular was on his way to his girlfriend’s house to pick up his daughter when he encountered a group of about 20 armed men in civilian dress. Witnesses to the encounter later told Paular’s relatives that the men, who the police report stated were police, asked Paular if he was “Ron-Ron,” and he answered that his name was Aaron. One of the men then opened fire on Paular, wounding him in the shoulder, so Paular tried to run away and hide. Paular’s relatives said they arrived at the scene soon after the initial shooting but while he was still alive. They assert that Paular was unarmed and was trying to hide from the police. When the police found him, one shot and killed him.

According to the police report, a police officer conducted a “buy-bust” operation, purchasing shabu from Paular.

[T]he suspect sensed that he was being entrapped, as he noticed the presence of [another police officer] who was then serving as back-up. Immediately, Paular reportedly pulled out a gun and fired at [the officer’s] chest and then fled on foot. Fortunately [the officer] was wearing a bullet proof vest. A brief chase ensued and as Paular entered a shanty, he reportedly tried to take hostage a baby. However, before he can do that, police caught up with him and engaged in a shootout [killing him].

Relatives contest this version of events and believe that the police planted the gun, grenade, and shabu they claim to have found in the aftermath of the shooting.

Angelo Lafuente, Benji, Renato Forio Jr., August 18
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila

Angelo Lafuente, 23, had spent time in jail for theft, but following his release in 2012 he had tried to stay out of trouble and ran a small electronic repairs business in his impoverished Manila neighborhood.[134] His father had recently been arrested for marijuana possession, and Lafuente had saved and borrowed 15,000 pesos (US$300) to get his father released, according to his relatives.

At about 4 p.m. on August 18, Lafuente was fixing electronics at his house when someone in the street yelled “Enemy!”, apparently signaling a police raid. Two of Lafuente’s companions, Benji, 24, and Renato Forio Jr., 26, ran out of the house, but encountered outside two uniformed police officers, and four armed masked men in plainclothes who detained all three men. In the presence of his relatives, the police tied Lafuente and his two friends’ hands behind their backs, put them into a marked white police van, and drove them away.

The relatives rushed to the Navotas police station, where about 30 detained persons from the raid were being processed, but could not locate the three men. At about 8 p.m., a police officer told the family to wait while the suspects were being tested for drugs.

At 4 a.m., police officers presented the relatives with photos of the bodies of the three men, who police claim they found in two different areas in the neighborhood. The police report of the incident said that Lafuente and Benji had died from gunshot wounds under the C-3 Bridge in the NBBS neighborhood where they were arrested, their hands still tied with the plastic straps put on when they had been detained. The police claim to have found shabu in both of their pockets. The 15,000 pesos Lafuente had in his pocket for his father’s release was missing. According to his relatives, Renato Forio Jr. was similarly found executed, his hands still tied, in a separate part of the neighborhood.

The police report says “unknown” gunmen were responsible for the deaths and does not address the evidence that the three men were taken in police custody hours before their bodies were found, and that their bodies were found still handcuffed. Furthermore, a witness later told Lafuente’s relatives that he had witnessed plainclothes men with masks beating Lafuente under the bridge the evening of his death.

Noel Alberto, “Sarah,” September 10
Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, Metro Manila