Dahlia Simangan. Journal of Genocide Research. Volume 20, Issue 1, March 2018.
Since the newly elected Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016, more than 7,000 deaths have been linked to his ongoing “war on drugs.” Despite international condemnation of extrajudicial and vigilante killings, the statistics show no sign of slowing down and the administration remains firm in eradicating people engaged in illegal drugs. This article inquires whether the Philippine “war on drugs” is an act of genocide using Gregory H. Stanton’s stages of genocide. Based on data drawn from news articles, policy issuances, government briefings, public speeches and available drug-related statistics, this article argues that Duterte’s rhetoric and policies satisfy the stages of classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. The analysis in this article hopes to send a message to the international community, civil society and the Philippine government that the human rights situation related to the “war on drugs” in the Philippines needs to be addressed immediately. It also aims to demonstrate the utility of Stanton’s stages in identifying early warning signs of genocide.
Introduction
Rodrigo Duterte took oath as the sixteenth president of the Philippines on 30 June 2016. His campaign platform centred on the eradication of crime in the Philippines, specifically on eliminating illegal drugs in the country. This attracted voters and gave him his electoral victory. Known as the heavy-handed mayor who cleaned up the once crime-infested Davao City, Duterte easily won the votes of a population frustrated by the previous administrations’ inability to address the problems of crime and drugs. Within six months of the start of his presidency, the Philippine National Police (PNP) reported that the crime rate in the Philippines had dropped by 31.67 per cent. The current administration attributes this decline to Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs. However, previous years had already recorded a declining trend in the crime rate in the Philippines. The same data also show an increase in murder cases of 18.06 per cent.
As of April 2017, Duterte’s “war on drugs” has already claimed more than 7,000 lives and shows no sign of slowing down. Human Rights Watch and international news outlets reported the same number, while Amnesty International estimates that around 9,000 were killed by both police and vigilantes. According to an investigation conducted by Reuters, 100 were shot dead and three injured out of 103 drug suspects, leading to a 97 per cent kill rate. Of the three who were not killed, two played dead and the third was arrested after trying to flee. The Philippine government disputes this number, claiming that it is an exaggeration propagated by fake news media by including homicides that are still under investigation. From their latest data, the PNP announced that 3,451 drug personalities were killed in anti-drug operations from 1 July 2016 to 26 July 2017, and out of 12,833 homicide cases from 1 July 2016 to 17 June 2016, 2,098 were drug-related, 2,535 were not, and 8,200 are still under investigation. Given this, the numbers related to drugs presented by the government, the media and human rights organizations differ.
The Philippine “war on drugs” caught international attention when graphic photos of dead bodies started saturating international and local news. Several international and local organizations have raised concerns about drug-related killings in the Philippines, which could amount to crimes against humanity. In April 2017, a Filipino filed a complaint against Duterte and eleven other government officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into the situation of mass murder in the Philippines. The UN, the EU and the US have also condemned Duterte’s “war on drugs.” Within the Philippines, human rights advocates are demanding an investigation into extrajudicial killings. Duterte has responded, “I will include you among [drug users] because you let them multiply.”
Despite international and domestic criticisms and his reputation for cursing and making rape jokes, Duterte still enjoys massive public support. Based on a Pulse Asia survey conducted in March 2017, seventy-eight per cent of Filipinos appreciate his work and seventy-six per cent trust him. The same survey also revealed that the administration’s fight against crime received the highest approval rating of seventy-nine per cent among selected national issues. Another survey conducted by Social Weather Stations shows a +66 net rating (very good) out of +100 for his whole administration and a +41 net rating (good) for the administration’s fight against crime.
This article examines Duterte’s “war on drugs” using Gregory H. Stanton’s stages of genocide. Based on data drawn from news articles, government briefings, public speeches and available drug-related statistics, I argue that Duterte’s rhetoric and policies satisfy the stages of classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. The analysis in this article hopes to support concerns raised by the international community and civil society that the human rights situation related to the Philippine “war on drugs” needs to be addressed immediately. It also aims to demonstrate the utility of Stanton’s stages in identifying early warning signs of genocide. This article comes at a time when Duterte’s violent campaign against illegal drugs continues to escalate and his rhetorical and practical disregard for human rights is increasingly worrying.
Contextual Background: The Problem of Drugs in the Philippines
My father used to tell me when I was growing up, “You can try anything except drugs.” Whenever there was news of unimaginable crime on TV, my mother would always comment, “Only drug users can do such horrible things.” My parents’ views reflect the common attitude of Filipinos towards drugs: an adik (a local derogatory term for drug users) is a good-for-nothing social pest who has tendencies to commit crimes. Whether this attitude towards drug users is the cause or the consequence of a nationwide campaign against drugs since the approval of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972, it is an attitude that persists until today.
Narcotic addiction only emerged in the Philippines during the American period (1901-46) when American forces introduced opium alkaloids, coca plant and hemp for medical reasons; later they were locally cultivated and used for drug addiction purposes. Based on drug-related arrests in 2015 by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), illegal drugs in the market are mainly methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as shabu (95.47 per cent), marijuana (4.29 per cent) and other drugs, such as cocaine, ecstasy and so on (0.24 per cent). In a survey of residential facilities for rehabilitation in the Philippines conducted in 2015 by the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), shabu is the primary drug of abuse (96.74 per cent) followed by marijuana (24.94 per cent) and cocaine (1.11 per cent).
According to a DDB survey conducted in 2012, it was estimated that there could be 1.3 million current drug users in the Philippines. In a 2015 survey by the Nationwide Survey on the Nature and Extent of Drug Abuse in the Philippines, the estimated number of drug users in the Philippines is 1.8 million, or 2.3 per cent of the population. According to Duterte, though, there are three million drug addicts, whom he is “happy to slaughter.” If there are indeed 1.8 million drug users (noting that some of them do not regularly use drugs or have tried them only once), this does not mean that they are all addicts and criminals—a false equivalence that Duterte and his administration confidently portray as true.
Duterte won the 2016 presidential elections for several reasons. First, he embodies the Philippine electorate’s concern for order. He is known as the mayor who established order and eliminated crime in Davao City. He allegedly initiated and supported the Davao Death Squad, a group of vigilantes trained by current and former police officers, which is responsible for summary executions of suspected criminals. Duterte and his supporters claim that Davao City was able to achieve peace and order because of these executions and this claim was the bedrock of his presidential campaign. Duterte emphasizes order above law, which is particularly attractive to voters who are tired of the ineffectiveness of legal institutions in addressing crime and disorder. This emphasis, however, is particularly dangerous for a country with weak rule of law and even more dangerous for a politician who has authoritarian tendencies.
Second, Duterte represents public resistance and resentment towards the elite democracy that came after the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, the former authoritarian president of the Philippines who ruled using martial law. Duterte’s presidential campaign slogan, “Change is Coming,” resonated well among Filipinos who felt that the country had stagnated under the administration of the same political elite. Third, Duterte is considered to be a political outsider from the Manila-centric elite that has dominated Philippine politics since Marcos’s dictatorship. His anti-elite and anti-establishment rhetoric convinced more than sixteen million voters that he was different from the traditional liberal politician. Fourth, Duterte’s electoral win symbolizes the denouement of the public’s disappointment with the liberal political system’s failure to sustain socio-economic development and maintain law and order in the country. The Filipino electorate now wanted to be led by an iron fist, even at the cost of liberal values of human rights and rule of law.
Duterte’s political style is popular because it challenges liberal principles and institutions. As Walden Bello puts it, he is “both a local expression as well as a pioneer of an ongoing global phenomenon: the rebellion against liberal democratic values and liberal democratic discourse.” Duterte idolizes the Marcos authoritarian style and raised controversy when he decided to allow Marcos’s burial in the Heroes’ Cemetery. It is therefore unsurprising that his supporters have downplayed the atrocities committed during the Marcos dictatorship. Duterte has significant connections with the Marcos family: his father served in the Marcos administration and he is a friend of Marcos’s son, whom he considered to be his vice-presidential running mate during the presidential campaign. Duterte’s strongman style, similar to Marcos’s, proved popular in addressing the crime and order issues in Davao City, and he is continuing in the same political style in the national arena as president of the Philippines.
The PNP started their “Campaign Plan Double Barrel” when Duterte took office. PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa described it: “One touch of the barrel, two triggers will be set off. There is a barrel that will target from above, the high-value targets. And there is a barrel that will target from below, the street-level personalities.” Dela Rosa used to be Duterte’s chief of the city police force in Davao City where he started “Operation Tokhang,” which is now being implemented nationwide. In “Operation Tokhang,” police officers approach drug suspects in their homes and talk them out of their involvement in drugs unless they want to face the consequences. As of April 2017, police officers have visited 7.9 million houses, from which 1.2 million drug suspects have surrendered. Independent investigations, however, reveal that “police officers routinely bust down doors in the middle of the night and then kill in cold blood unarmed [drug suspects]” some of whom were “yelling they will surrender while on their knees or in another compliant position” before they were shot dead. This alarming situation in the Philippines prompts the question: is the Philippine “war on drugs” an act of genocide?
Conceptual Background: The Definition of Genocide
Genocide studies have grappled with the boundaries of the definition of genocide. Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the term and initiated the Genocide Convention, defined genocide in a capacious and generic way: “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” Years later, debates over the concept of genocide covering perpetrators’ intent, the group-based identity of victims, threshold numbers of victims and methods of destruction have paved the way for either a broad or narrow application of the term. On the other hand, some scholars complain that unnecessarily extended debates on definitions, which Israel Charny calls “definitionalism,” create emotional distance between those who study genocide and those who have experienced and are experiencing it. By emphasizing the intent of perpetrators and including victim groups outside the legalistic definition, some studies have led to a broadening of what constitutes genocide. Meanwhile, others argue for a more restricted or careful application of the term in order to prevent negative consequences for the adjudication of international crimes and to preserve analytical precision, among other reasons.
This article is neither an attempt to further muddle the already highly contested concept of genocide nor an addition to existing typologies and categorizations of genocide. I acknowledge that imprecise broadening of the definition of genocide may lead to what Giovanni Sartori calls “conceptual stretching,” an intellectual exercise that unintentionally produces vague and amorphous conceptualizations that are not helpful in confronting problems based on empirical evidence. I also agree with Luke Glanville’s observation that inaction despite the invocation of the term genocide dilutes the ideational power and legal responsibilities attached to it. It is not my deliberate intention to stretch and devalue the definition of genocide based on hypothetical scenarios. Instead, this article calls for meaningful action to address the ongoing processes of what seems to be an act of genocide using real events, pronouncement and policies. It uses an events-based analysis to inquire whether an act fulfils the stages of genocide.
Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” This is the most widely used and legal definition of genocide. Among the acts included in the definition that are applicable to the Philippine “war on drugs” is obviously the killing of members of the group. The acts of “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” may also be applicable. Gross overcrowding of jails and rehabilitation centres and illegal detention of drug suspects in inhumane conditions are acts that inflict serious physical and mental harm. Drug suspects are unlawfully arrested, extorted and tortured.
Using the Genocide Convention’s definition, Duterte’s “war on drugs” may not qualify as genocide because the drug suspects are not a national, ethnic, racial or religious grouping. However, Duterte and his supporters collectively label drug suspects as adik, not human, good for nothing, criminals, rapists and murderers, among others. Critical genocide studies veer away from the liberal underpinnings and a rigid and legalistic understanding of genocide and instead use a dialectical or holistic approach to shed light on the history and context in which genocide takes place. Alexander Laban Hinton’s anthropological approach to examining genocide proposes that the Genocide Convention “should have been more broadly defined to include the destruction of any sort of group defined by the protagonists in the genocide.” This echoes Frank Robert Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn’s formulation of a perpetrator-defined victim group. Using a critical genocide studies lens, the adik in the Philippines qualifies as a victim of genocide. The target group is imagined to be “criminals” rather than an ethnic or religious group. This relates to how A. Dirk Moses points out the role of fear and security imperatives in the conduct of genocide in his analysis of the convergence of genocide studies and Holocaust historiography and studies:
Security imperatives and fear, rather than race hatred, are the operative logics of genocide. Far from being a massive hate crime, as commonly supposed, genocide is an extreme form of counterinsurgency or security measure, marked above all by pre-emption and collective punishment as well as the destruction of groups suspected of insurgency and collaboration with enemy forces. It is therefore governed by political logics, rather than solely by racial logics.
Using the same definition in the Genocide Convention, the intent to destroy is plain and clear. Duterte has publicly spoken about killing drug suspects on several occasions and even encouraged others to kill those they suspect to be involved in drugs. Intent is a unique characteristic of genocide, and one that Duterte’s “war on drugs” satisfies. Duterte’s vocal intent and ongoing attempts to eradicate drug suspects are indicative of a process that leads to mass destruction regardless of the number of deaths. This proof of intent will be crucial when assigning guilt and responsibility and establishing historical truth. It will support a strong legal case for implicating Duterte and other government officials involved in implementing this intent.
This article is not the first to analyse the scope and consequences of Duterte’s “war on drugs” vis-à-vis international law. There are also commentaries arguing that Duterte’s “war on drugs” should be labelled for what it is—an act of genocide. This article will add to this scant but relevant discussion by comparing Duterte’s “war on drugs” with events leading to and happening after a genocide using Stanton’s stages of genocide.
Eight Stages of Genocide in the Philippine “War on Drugs” Context
Classification
Classification is the first stage of genocide. According to Stanton, classification uses categories to distinguish between “us” and “them.” He adds that this classification is prominent in a polarized society. Examples of this classification are German and Jew in Nazi Germany and Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. In this article, I posit that classification is not limited to racial or ethnic groups. In Cambodia, the Pol Pot regime weeded out and annihilated intellectuals. In Timor-Leste, Indonesian forces executed rebel group sympathizers. These examples are social and political classifications. In the Philippines, Duterte and his administration classify users of illegal drugs as drug addicts, criminals, rapists and murderers. In one of his campaign rallies prior to his election, he warned, “You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because I would kill you.” He also labelled them as “sons of whores [who] are destroying [Filipino] children.” The false equivalence purported by Duterte and his supporters that drug users are addicts, rapists and murderers qualifies as a classification stage of genocide. The government uses the distinction that drug users are “bad” and therefore different from “us” to justify the killings. Supporters of this “war on drugs” also invoke this distinction when they express hatred and apathy towards the victims of these killings. This distinction between “us” and “them” and “good” and “bad” is evident in public narratives, such as in social media, and official government statements.
Symbolization
Symbolization is the assignment and active application of names or symbols to the classifications mentioned above in order to distinguish “us” from “them.” Nazis made Jews wear armbands with a yellow star and the Khmer Rouge regime made people wear a blue scarf. In the Philippines, however, symbolization takes a different form. Victims are often found in the streets with cardboard signs on top of or next to their bodies labelling them as drug pushers, users or rapists. Common labels on these cardboard signs include “I am a drug pusher. Do not be like me.” This has become everyday news in Philippine media, which is populated by undignified images of slain victims. Aside from a source of threat, these cardboard signs are symbols that distinguish those who are involved in illegal drugs from those who are not.
Dehumanization
Symbolization is harmless unless it is coupled with dehumanization, according to Stanton. In the Philippines, alleged drug users and dealers are found dead on streets and roadsides, labelled with cardboard signs, and sometimes with their faces wrapped in masking tape. These acts can be interpreted as acts of dehumanization. Danilo Andres Reyes argues that these alleged criminals in the Philippines are used as a “spectacle of violence” to serve as a threat to others. The method of symbolization and dehumanization applied to the bodies of the victims by both state and non-state apparatuses “reduces the body to an object as a vehicle to carry political messages” that threats are real for those who are alleged criminals and that safety is provided for law-abiding citizens.
There is nothing more explicitly dehumanizing than claiming that an individual is not a human being and therefore is not entitled to human rights. Duterte and his administration have publicly expressed their rejection of drug users’ humanity and human rights, claiming that they are not human or less human than law-abiding citizens. In response to international human rights organization and UN condemnations and accusations that the “war on drugs” is tantamount to crimes against humanity, Philippine Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, a vocal ally of the president, told reporters, “How can that be when your war is only against drug lords, drug addicts, drug pushers? You consider them humanity? No. I believe not.” Duterte also parades his rejection of human rights in several incidents captured in the following statements:
My order is shoot to kill you. I do not care about human rights, you better believe me.
That is why I said, “[W]hat crime against humanity?” In the first place, I would like to be frank with you, are they [drug users] humans? What is your definition of a human being? Tell me.
These human rights [advocates] did not count those who were killed before I became President—the children who were raped and mutilated [by drug users].
Duterte bases his acts of dehumanization on the belief that drug use, specifically that of shabu, shrinks the brain and users are therefore beyond redemption. Neuroscientist Carl Hart visited Manila in May 2017 to debunk myths that exaggerate the link between shabu usage and brain damage. During his visit, Hart provided information about fallacies pertaining to drug use and also took a stance on the ineffectiveness of Duterte’s policy:
I have given out hundreds of doses of methamphetamine, approaching thousands. I have never seen anyone become violent … There are people who rape. And also take amphetamines. But the vast majority of people who rape do not take amphetamines. So to simply blame the drug? Not only will you not get to the bottom of rape. But it is just infant thinking. I do not know what to say to people whose thinking is so remedial. You certainly do not want them in charge of policies designed to protect society.
After his speech, Hart received death threats from Duterte’s supporters, and even Duterte described him as “that black guy … that son of a bitch who has gone crazy” and accused him of peddling “bullshit.”
Organization
“Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility.” The “war on drugs” in the Philippines is clearly state-sponsored. It is the cornerstone of Duterte’s policies, carried over from his twenty-two-year stint as the mayor of Davao City. The “war on drugs” is also highly organized, for which Duterte mobilizes both the police and the military. As soon as he took office, the police released a “watch list” for drug suspects. In October 2016, Duterte proudly waved a list containing anywhere from 600,000 to a million names of people he intends to eradicate. He also publicly read out a list of government officials allegedly involved in the illegal drug trade. After a closer examination, however, the list appears outdated and lacks verified information, as it is based on hearsay and includes names of deceased individuals and names without surnames.
Duterte also encourages non-state apparatuses, such as vigilante and hired killers, to eradicate alleged individuals involved in drugs. “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents do it would be too painful,” he said in a public speech just after his inauguration. Police hire members of clandestine groups and issue them with a list of targets. While Duterte defends the idea that vigilante killings are a myth, despite being known as the “Death Squad Mayor,” eyewitness reports of the killings and even confessions of hired killers prove otherwise. This is further illustrated in an excerpt from a report by Human Rights Watch:
Relatives, neighbours, and other witnesses told Human Rights Watch that armed assailants typically worked in groups of two, four, or a dozen. They would wear civilian clothes, often all black, and have their faces shielded by balaclava-style headgear or other masks, and baseball caps, or helmets. They would bang on doors and barge into rooms, but the assailants would not identify themselves or provide warrants. Family members reported hearing beatings and their loved ones begging for their lives. The shooting 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; or the body would be dumped elsewhere later, sometimes with hands tied or the head wrapped in plastic. Local residents often said they saw uniformed police on the outskirts of the incident, securing the perimeter—but even if not visible before a shooting, special crime scene investigators would arrive within minutes.
The report concludes that the Philippine police were directly involved in these vigilante killings and that Duterte’s open endorsement of extrajudicial executions of drug suspects implicates him and his senior officials for crimes against humanity. However, the participation of vigilantes in drug operations allows Duterte and the security officers to claim deniability of state responsibility.
Polarization
Duterte’s “war on drugs” polarizes Philippine society with regard to human rights, the role of the media, and regional affiliation in the country. Polarization happens when perpetrators of genocide use propaganda, hate speech and laws or decrees to divide society, therefore allowing them to continue their activities amidst a lack of public consensus. In her article examining the logics among Duterte’s supporters, Nicole Curato points out that Duterte’s domestic policy on drugs hinges on penal populism. According to Julian V. Roberts et al., penal populism “consists of a pursuit of a set of penal policies to win votes rather than to reduce crime or to promote justice.” They argue that populist penal policies are a consequence of intentional exploitation of “public anxiety about crime and public resentment toward offenders” or a response to “public opinion without having undertaken an adequate examination of the true nature of public views.” In the case of Duterte’s policy on drugs, it is a way of addressing this latent public anxiety and fear of crime without sufficient examination of the root cause of crime and reasons for public emotions. Duterte’s policy on drugs also echoes John Pratt’s articulation of penal populism as an instrumentalization of perceived public sentiments that criminals and prisoners are favoured over their victims and law-abiding citizens.
Pratt puts forward the idea that “penal populism feeds on division and dissent rather than consensus.” Curato confirms that the consequence of penal populism in the Philippines takes the form of exclusion and divisiveness, as it silences the plight of drug suspects, and the perspectives of those who fight for their human rights, for the purpose of attending to public frustrations. The Filipinos are deeply divided over the issue. A populist leader like Duterte is obviously backed up by a staunch and outspoken support base. Social media platforms became forums for Filipinos to express their opinions about Duterte’s policies. Those who criticize Duterte on social media are labelled as intellectual elitists and biased human rights supporters who are out of touch with the realities Filipinos are facing on a daily basis.
Polarization with regard to the Philippine “war on drugs” is also manifested in how the government parades propaganda information to justify whatever Duterte does. As Stanton describes it, “motivations for targeting a group are indoctrinated through mass media.” In the Philippines, claims that Duterte will solve the crime problem consequently target a group of individuals, specifically drug suspects, and therefore garner support from those who fail to screen the factuality of these claims. Duterte’s supporters efficiently use social media to attack Duterte’s critics and to glorify him. There are allegations that Duterte mobilizes a group of online trolls to push his policies. These trolls use fake accounts, pick fights with Duterte’s critics online, propagate fake news and constantly promote Duterte’s policies. If these allegations are true, active and intentional polarization of public sentiments about the “war on drugs” in the Philippines is clearly state-sanctioned.
Online accusations are not one-sided. Duterte’s supporters also accuse mainstream media and Duterte’s critics of spreading fake news about the president and highlighting the “war on drugs” victims instead of the victims and would-be victims of drug suspects. Mocha Uson, for example, a Filipino celebrity and ardent supporter of Duterte with a huge online following, calls mainstream media “presstitutes” for being biased against the president. Uson was recently appointed Assistant Secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office as payback for supporting Duterte’s presidential campaign. Uson vowed to oppose mainstream media using social media but her appointment is a manifestation of a state-sanctioned polarization of public sentiment and propagation of unreliable information given that she has been involved in several fake news controversies. Uson and her fellow Die-Hard Duterte Supporters (DDS), as they call themselves, use social media to present an illusory sense of nationalism and pride by calling Duterte “father” and “protector.” They brandish their legitimacy and representativeness based on their claim of a huge social media following. Their narratives represent the division between “us” (the DDS) and “them” (the adik and those who defend the adik‘s rights). Opposing views, accompanied by heated debates, not only polarize the public but also fan hatred.
Preparation
Preparation encompasses the previous stages of classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization and polarization. Stanton offers examples used by perpetrators of genocide that can qualify as a stage of preparation: usage of euphemisms to downplay grave violations of human rights, indoctrination of fear into the population using hateful rhetoric and propaganda, mobilization of weapons and troops or militias, justification based on pre-emptive self-defence, and the creation of political processes as tools to advance their agenda. The previous sections have touched on these qualifications.
“War on drugs” is a euphemism for extrajudicial killings. It is mass murder in the name of an illusory war. It is a euphemism enabling the majority to strip away the humanity of drug suspects and to eradicate them without being held accountable. Duterte mobilizes both the police and the military to “shoot to kill” drug suspects and employs vigilante groups to water down the responsibility of officers in their participation in extrajudicial killings. Police and military officers have become immune to legal obligations since Duterte has promised that he will protect them. No officers or private individuals have faced charges, while families of the victims and witnesses are silenced by fear of reprisals.
Duterte is known for his foul mouth and profanity. He has called drug suspects “sons of whores.” He spews hateful rhetoric, perpetuates fear, and encourages divisiveness by maintaining a narrative that the Filipino people will be in a state of constant victimization if drug suspects are not eradicated. This narrative is similar to Stanton’s example of leaders claiming that “if we do not kill them, they will kill us.” This is justification based on self-defence, thereby indoctrinating fear and obtaining support for mass killings. The following statements are excerpts from an interview in which he explains his logic behind mass killings in the Philippines.
That is not criminal liability. It could not be negligence because you have to save your life. It could not be recklessness because you have to defend yourself.
If you destroy my country, I will kill you. That is a legitimate thing. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement.
Threatening criminals with death is not a crime and if they are killed by the thousands, that is not my problem. My problem is how to take care of the law-abiding, god-fearing young persons of this Republic.
What is more dangerous than what came out in the above statements is that Duterte’s supporters, who constitute a majority of government officials and the population, believe in his words. A leader will not be able to stay long in a powerful position that encourages, commits and condones extrajudicial mass killings without the support of its state apparatus and its people. In the Philippines, state security forces implement Duterte’s “war on drugs,” which generally enjoys public support. “War on drugs” supporters whom I talked with accept Duterte’s logic that those who are killed are merely collateral damage in addressing the larger problem of drugs and crime in the Philippines. Duterte’s divisive fear-mongering among the population and hateful and dehumanizing rhetoric against drug suspects and their human rights defenders qualify as a preparation stage of genocide. Classification and symbolization are natural social activities but they become dangerous if combined with dehumanization.
A key element, and probably the most dangerous, in the preparation stage is the creation and utilization of political processes to advance the perpetrators’ agenda. While at a glance this may not seem obvious in the Philippines, Duterte has already shown signs of authoritarianism in the country. There has been a pattern in which critics of Duterte and his policies have been threatened, demeaned and even jailed. Former justice secretary and current senator Leila de Lima, a human rights activist and known to be Duterte’s fiercest critic, is now behind bars for her alleged financial ties with drug syndicates. In 2009, when she was the chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), de Lima investigated Duterte’s links to the Davao Death Squad. In 2016, she called for an end to vigilante killings and urged the Philippine senate to investigate the incidents. Her pursuits made her a target of hate speech and misogynistic attacks by Duterte and his supporters. To discredit de Lima, the president exposed her romantic affair with her driver who, according to Duterte, was a drug user and served as de Lima’s collector of financial bribes when she was justice secretary. De Lima denied all allegations but was arrested in February 2017. International condemnation of her arrest followed. The independent Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), for example, concluded that Duterte and Aguirre portrayed de Lima’s guilt before legal proceedings had started and expressed concern that her arrest was politically motivated.
It is common knowledge among residents of Davao City that Duterte used to direct the Davao Death Squad. Some members of this squad have come forward and confessed their activities. Duterte has both denied and admitted his connection with the Davao Death Squad, and prospects for an impartial investigation of his activities by national legislative bodies filled with those loyal to him remain bleak. On the other hand, de Lima, an opponent of extrajudicial killings, is now in prison for drug allegations. Duterte swiftly used political processes to silence de Lima but consistently circumvented them by stating that murdering criminals is not a crime.
Extermination
Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are three million drug addicts. I would be happy to slaughter them. If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me].
These are the chilling words of Duterte in response to international condemnation of his “war on drugs.” The administration was quick to defend Duterte’s words, saying that his remarks were misinterpreted and that, unlike Hitler, he only intends to kill three million criminals and not innocent people. Duterte has publicly ordered police officers to shoot to kill those who resist arrest, and guaranteed presidential protection of officers involved in killings, as illustrated in the following statements:
If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police [will be] shoot to kill. Shoot to kill for organized crime. You heard that? Shoot to kill for every organized crime.
Shoot to kill is to shoot and kill him. I do not want the police wasting bullets.
For as long as it is done in the performance of the duty by the police and soldiers, that is my responsibility, that is my official and personal guarantee.
If there are police involved in an encounter, do not investigate them anymore, that is my order.
Duterte has also encouraged ordinary citizens to conduct their own arrests of suspected criminals and stated that he would award those citizens a medal if they killed those who resisted. “Those among you in your respective neighbourhoods, feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support,” he said at a public event in June 2016. These statements emboldened not only police and military officers but also ordinary civilians to carry out law and order duties usually meant for trained officers. The rule of law is no longer exclusive to state forces but has been disseminated to any armed individual willing to conduct an arrest or to kill. According to Human Rights Watch, “President Duterte appears to have instigated unlawful acts by the police, incited citizens to commit serious violence, and made himself criminal[ly] liable under international law for the unlawful killings as a matter of command responsibility.”
In January 2017, the Philippine government had to address the news of the death of a South Korean businessman, Jee Ick-Joo, at the hands of police officers. Rogue police officers kidnapped Jee and extorted money from his family based on false allegations that he was connected to the drug trade in the Philippines. Fearing damage to bilateral relations with South Korea, an important ally for the Philippines, Duterte immediately ordered the suspension of drug-related police operations. While stating that he would continue his “war on drugs” until the end of his presidential term, the suspension was supposedly designed to internally cleanse the national police of rogue officers. According to one Philippine senator, vigilante killings coincidentally stopped right after the suspension. However, in another report, unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle rained bullets on a twenty-four-year-old man in one of Manila’s poor neighbourhoods the night after the suspension.
In March 2017, dela Rosa announced the resumption of drug-related police operations, vowing that it would be less bloody with stricter policies to prevent the participation of vigilantes. The government still claims no accountability for the more than 7,000 deaths before this shift to a stricter policy and supposedly less bloody approach, despite international calls for an independent investigation. However, within just twenty-four hours of the lifting of the suspension, police operations killed eight suspects and “justif[ied] those deaths on the dubious basis that the suspects ‘fought back,'” according to Phelime Kine, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. Reuters has reported that, since the relaunch of the “Double Barrel” operation, police officers have become more creative in skewing the death toll by bringing dead bodies to hospitals to be declared dead on arrival in order to avoid further investigations that may reveal the incidents as summary executions.
Dela Rosa also announced that they would include a member of a parish church to make their campaign credible. He reasoned that this plan was a way to safeguard the operations from abuses. This announcement was clearly an admission that drug-related police operations before the suspension were bloody with vague policies and participated in by vigilantes. It also manifests that they want to ensure the façade of credibility of the “war on drugs” by including priests or representatives of a church, who are not law enforcement officers, during operations.
Duterte is keeping his promise that he will support and protect officers involved in drug-related operations. To date, the worst punishment for officers proven to be involved in unlawful killing of drug suspects is a six-month suspension. Duterte said that he would pardon and even promote police officers who were involved in the drug-related killing of Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa. With regard to the police officers involved in Jee’s murder, Duterte ordered their reassignment to conflict zones instead of suspension during the investigations. Duterte formally apologized to Jee’s family and to South Korea and assured them that those responsible would be brought to justice. However, Duterte has not apologized to, assured justice for, or held a memorial for the more than 7,000 Filipinos who mostly lived in poverty and died without proof of guilt, and whose families will now live in worse situations.
Duterte’s “war on drugs” has a single method: the eradication of drug-related individuals for his purpose of protecting the Filipino people from crimes that might be committed by those individuals. Duterte considers this campaign an eradication of social ills, and not mass killings, calling drug suspects mere parts of the “apparatus” of illegal drug use and thereby stripping them of their humanity. Disturbingly, most Filipinos buy into his rhetoric of fear and hate, as manifested in his positive approval ratings and the widespread public support for his “war on drugs.” It is for this rhetoric that they elected him in the first place. “I do not care if I burn in hell for as long as the people I serve live in paradise,” he said during the election campaign. Duterte’s scapegoating and paranoia and his messianic rhetoric of delivering the Filipino people from evil characterize genocidal regimes in the past. Hitler convinced the Germans that the Jews were the causes of Germany’s problems in the same way that Duterte blames drug suspects for crimes in the Philippines. The Turkish government committed genocide against the Armenian population out of resentment and suspicion. Duterte’s government has organized mass killings of drug suspects out of resentment for previous crimes committed by drug users and dealers and a suspicion that individuals related to drugs will also commit crimes.
Denial
Stanton lists denial as the final stage and as always following the act of genocide. It is an indicator that genocide has happened but perpetrators try to cover up their actions by eliminating evidence, intimidating witnesses and blocking investigations. Stanton adds that their denial is often followed by placing blame on the victims. I will go through these components of denial, but it must be noted that Duterte has denied allegations of extrajudicial killings on the record but at the same time has admitted to killings. As demonstrated in the previous subsections, he has made numerous public speeches in which he encouraged both state and non-state actors to participate in eradicating drug-related individuals while assuring them of his presidential protection.
Duterte’s administration maintains that the more than 7,000 deaths often quoted by news agencies and international human rights organizations are bloated numbers because they include cases that are still under investigation, requiring witnesses and forensic examinations. However, Human Rights Watch concluded that police reports of suspects being killed because they resisted depart from eyewitness accounts of murders of unarmed suspects already in custody. Human Rights Watch also adds that “to bolster their claims, the police routinely planted guns, spent ammunition, and drug packets next to the victims’ bodies.” Moreover, as mentioned earlier, witnesses and families choose not to speak or press charges out of fear of reprisals. These incidents satisfy key components of the denial stage: covering up evidence and staging the crime scene, placing the blame on the victims by claiming that they resisted and officers killed them in self-defence, and inciting fear of reprisal among families and witnesses.
Another component of denial that is present in Duterte’s “war on drugs” is the active obstruction of an independent investigation. Although Duterte has mentioned that he is ready to face any complaint against him, he has used verbal profanity to threaten the UN, the EU, the US and human rights organizations for expressing their concern over the casualties of his “war on drugs.” More recently, Duterte has called for the police to shoot human rights activists for “obstructing justice” and said that he will also investigate those who demand investigations into his “war on drugs.” Moreover, the government has previously dismissed inquiries into Duterte and the deaths from his “war on drugs.” With a legislative branch filled with Duterte backers, future investigations seem improbable.
Summary and Conclusion
This article has analysed Duterte’s “war on drugs” by scoping existing news articles, government briefings, public speeches and available drug-related statistics. Duterte’s “war on drugs” is a textbook case of what the processes of genocide look like. Drug suspects in the Philippines are classified as “bad” and labelled as criminals through symbolisms. Duterte, his administration and his supporters believe that drug suspects are not human, or less human than them. As it is a state-sanctioned policy, the “war on drugs” is highly organized with both state and non-state actors participating in anti-drug operations. This drug war is also polarizing, with one side of the debate wanting to get rid of drug suspects by whatever means possible and the other side wanting to protect their human rights. Duterte’s administration has created enforcement programmes, mobilized police and military apparatuses, and silenced or threatened political critics in order to efficiently exterminate drug suspects. He has also encouraged civilians to participate not just in reporting drug suspects but also in shooting them. Duterte is happy to slaughter millions of drug suspects, likening himself to Hitler. He has ordered “shoot-to-kill” operations and assured officers involved in these operations of his support and protection.
Duterte justifies his policies using a rhetoric of fear, hatred and paranoia in order to deny accountability for the deaths from his “war on drugs.” Police officers in anti-drug operations eliminate evidence that drug suspects were unarmed and compliant. Due to this state-sponsored violence, witnesses and family members are intimidated out of speaking for the victims. Duterte and his administration continue to block independent investigations and threaten critics of his policies while putting into positions of power people Duterte feels indebted to despite their lack of qualifications and experience. Considering all these factors, Duterte’s “war on drugs” satisfies the stages of genocide as Stanton describes them. It may not fully satisfy the legal definition of genocide but it has the characteristics found in stages of classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial. This approach departs from limiting genocide to its legalistic definition and considers a more contextual analysis of what constitutes an act of genocide.
The analysis in this article also reveals that stages of genocide can be overlapping, interconnected and non-linear. First, in Duterte’s “war on drugs,” symbolization happens simultaneously with extermination when drug suspects are killed and labelled with cardboard signs. Second, the dehumanization stage traverses other stages. Drug suspects are dehumanized in the classification, symbolization and extermination stages. Third, these stages can also be non-linear. After the deaths of drug suspects, Duterte and his administration propagate rhetoric that polarizes the public in their opinions of human rights, crime and public policy on drugs.
Inquiring whether the Philippine “war on drugs” is an act of genocide produces two opposing but not mutually exclusive answers. The answer is no if the inquiry is kept within the confines of the legalistic definition of genocide. The answer is yes based on Stanton’s stages of genocide and other broader definitions of genocide. Applying Stanton’s stages of genocide is an alternative approach to explaining genocidal events that may not fall under the traditional or conventional conceptualization of genocide. The problem with this approach, as Moses warns, is that “it may identify situations as at least ‘pre-genocidal’ that it does not intend to highlight.” However, in the case of the Philippine “war on drugs,” the stages of genocide have already all been fulfilled. Some may also argue that Duterte may be responsible for crimes against humanity but not genocide. While this may be true, how does one reconcile the fact that the Philippine “war on drugs” fulfils all the stages of genocide? Perhaps it is at this point that it is more rational to depart from definitionalism and instead focus on what must be done to avert this humanitarian crisis, whatever name one prefers to give it. As Stanton laments, “debating whether mass killing fits the conventional definition of genocide is most often an excuse for non-action.” Even if one does not accept that the Philippine “war on drugs” is an act of genocide, using Stanton’s stages adds to existing discussions and measures on genocide prevention. It sheds light on events related to and hopes to set an alarm for the state-sponsored humanitarian crisis in the Philippines. It is also a particularly useful analytical lens for explaining how perpetrators of genocide operate and a confirmation that genocide is a process, a progression of events, and a series of planned methods operated by organized actors and agencies.
Calling the mass murder of drug suspects in the Philippines a “war on drugs” removes its human toll. It must be called what it is—a mass murder of unarmed, often poor civilians suspected of using drugs. At his command, Duterte’s administration has successfully incited, if not wholly organized, the killings of more than 7,000 Filipinos out of fear and a hatred of heinous crimes previously committed by either suspected or proven drug users. They have justified the killing of drug suspects by claiming that if they were not killed, they would kill. It is murdering the “murderer” before the murder happens.