Valentine’s Day was supposed to be like an ordinary day for Tina* and her husband Roel.
The couple never really celebrated February 14 in the four years that they’ve been together. There were times that Roel was out at sea, or that Tina was needed in her mother’s home. But mostly, the two thought that money should be spent on far more important things: food for the table, milk for their child, or medicine for some relative in need.
Valentine’s Day in 2024 was different and has since permanently made a mark on Tina, but for unfortunate reasons. She remembered arguing with Roel in the morning, but couldn’t recall anymore what about. What Tina remembers is that her husband left and by night time, she was already a widow.
“Matutulog na sana ako noon pero biglang sabi ng kapatid ko, wala na ang asawa ko, patay na at nakitang nakabulagta (I was about to go to sleep when my sibling said that my husband is gone, he was found dead),” Tina told Rappler.
Police claimed Roel crashed his motorcycle and slammed head first into the gutter. Neighbors whispered among themselves that he was hit in the head with a baseball bat. Tina said her husband, who has been in and out of jail for years, was targeted for his alleged use of illegal drugs.
But Tina didn’t question the police. Roel’s sibling, she recalled, was forced to sign a form accepting that what happened was an accident, waiving any need for an investigation.
“Kung may pera ako, gugustuhin ko na ipaglaban ang nangyari sa asawa ko kasi gusto ko naman makakuha ng hustisya para matahimik siya,” she said. “Pero mahirap, ayaw ko na madamay talaga kaya hindi na ako magreklamo.”
(If I had the resources, I want to fight and get justice for my husband. But it’s hard. I don’t want them to come after me, so I will not complain anymore.)
Two years of Marcos’ drug war
Roel was just one of the hundreds killed under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s supposedly “bloodless” anti-illegal drug campaign.
At least 703 drug-related killings were recorded during the first two years of Marcos, or as of June 30, 2024, according to independent monitoring by the Dahas Project of the University of the Philippines’ Third World Studies Center. (READ: When Duterte left, this team kept on counting the dead)
In a report released to mark Marcos’ second year in office, researchers from the Dahas Project said that “small players continue to be the primary victims of the drug war,” showing data that 141 victims or 39.3% of the total death toll were individuals with prior drug records.
Out of the total death toll, 283 or 40.4% were committed by state agents, including the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Dahas Project team member Joel Ariate Jr. told Rappler that “almost 90 to 95%” of documented killings carried out by state agents had the same narrative: the long-running and often debunked claim that the victims fought back (nanlaban).
Meanwhile, there were 107 killings carried out by non-state agents. At least 240 were done by unidentified individuals or those “who were seen by witnesses or authorities, but failed to be identified due to the lack of information, covering of face/ other identifiable features, and distance from the witnesses.”
The Dahas Project also recorded at least 73 killings committed by unknown assailants, cases “in which there were no assailants seen by witnesses or the police, mostly in the cases of found bodies.”
There were more drug-related killings recorded between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. The difference is that killings committed by unidentified individuals surpassed those by state agents — 135 deaths against 123. This means that killings by police during Marcos’ second year in office decreased by 37, from 160 to 123.
While this is a significant change, Ariate emphasized that the increasing number of killings carried out by individuals who cannot be identified are still a serious cause for concern. These incidents, as seen during the Duterte administration, hardly led to suspects arrested, nor justice being served for victims.
“Ang argumento nga dito, itong mga patayan na ginawa unidentified assailants na ito, kung hindi man homicide ay outright murder cases, na dapat tinutugunan at sinusugpo rin ng kapulisan,” he told Rappler in an interview. “So ang mga ito, pati ang pagpatay na gawa ng pulis, pareho na responsibilidad nila.”
(The argument here is that these killings by unidentified assailants, these are outright murder cases if not homicide, that should be addressed and stopped by police. They are also accountable for these killings, and not just those committed by state agents.)
Existing data – most of which were derived from reports by local media, which in turn, were based on police blotters – betray the Marcos administration’s narrative about its anti-illegal drug campaign.
The President has always taken efforts to distance himself from the violence that marked his predecessor’s reign, evident in the almost 30,000 killings under Duterte’s drug war. Marcos had said that the former president’s “focus on enforcement” resulted in “abuses by certain elements in the government.”
Perhaps Marcos’ most explicit statement was done during his third State of the Nation Address (SONA), where he said that “extermination” was not a strategy of his administration’s “bloodless war against dangerous drugs.” But the week before SONA on July 22 saw at least 15 individuals killed, with 10 killings committed by state agents.
The total number of drug-related killings under Marcos currently stands at 748, as of August 7. This means that 45 individuals were already killed in one month and seven days.
Then there was nothing in Davao City
If Marcos was to show something as a sign of his “commitment” against violence, perhaps it could be seen in Davao City — the stronghold of the Duterte family, his former ally-turned-political-foe.
Davao del Sur, the province where Davao City is geographically located, has consistently topped the list of drug-related killing hot spots across the Philippines under Marcos’ drug war.
But something turned the tide in a city that was hard to penetrate. The trigger, ironically, was no less than Duterte’s own flesh and blood.
It was a scene reminiscent of several moments during one of the most violent times in the country. Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, on March 22, declared his own version of a war on drugs, issuing a death threat to drug personalities in his city: “I’m already telling you right now, get out of here [and] if you’re not going to stop, I’ll kill you.”
Seven people were killed by police within a week after the announcement, according to the Dahas Project monitoring. And then all drug-related killings stopped.
“May serye ng patayan, ‘yung bunga ng buy-bust operations pero after that, wala na kaming na-monitor any drug-related killings sa Davao City,” Ariate said. (There was a series of killings from buy-bust operations, but after that, we didn’t monitor any drug-related deaths in Davao City.)
The last killing monitored in Davao City by the Dahas Project happened on March 26, 2024. The victim was a “city-level high-value individual killed in a buy-bust by operatives.”
Davao del Sur registered a total of 104 drug-related killings between July 2022 and March 2024. Except for one, almost all killings happened in Davao City, making it a top hot spot in the Philippines.
The plateau in Davao City’s death toll could be attributed to the intense scrutiny and actions carried out by the national government in response to the week-long killing spree that followed the younger Duterte’s drug war declaration on March 22.
These include unprecedented shakeups in the Davao City police structure, including the removal of key personnel as well as the launch of an investigation into drug-related killings in the city. This also comes as doomsday preacher Apollo Quiboloy remains to be on the run.
What happened in Davao City over the past decades, particularly the violence, can be directly linked to Rodrigo Duterte. For many years, under different presidencies, the city has been plagued by killings committed by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS), which is allegedly overseen by the former president himself.
Human Rights Watch researcher Carlos Conde, who closely followed the issue of DDS killings as a journalist, said that Duterte figured that striking fear in the hearts of people has political value.
“It’s clear to everybody there and elsewhere in the world why Duterte has a tough approach on crime in Davao City, it was all politics,” he said in Filipino. “It was to assert control of the city and we see that now, Duterte has total control of the city and probably even the region, but the problems that they set out to eliminate weren’t solved.”
The almost full control that the Duterte family exercised over its police is not unique to the city. Under the law, mayors have supervisory powers over the police units in areas under their jurisdiction. These include having a say on the appointment of local police officials.
University of the Philippines professor and political analyst Maria Ela Atienza said these are “in support of local autonomy and decentralization,” but the problem is that many local chief executives abuse this power with impunity.
“The national government, especially the President, usually exercises disciplinary action only in cases when the local chief executive is considered a critic or part of the opposition,” she told Rappler.
This is perhaps why the Commission on Human Rights investigation into the DDS killings in 2009 did not lead to anything significant in terms of accountability.
While the crackdown on erring Davao cops shows the government’s “decisiveness,” there is little doubt that these are all happening just because of the messy fallout between Marcos and Duterte, cemented by Vice President Sara Duterte’s resignation from the Cabinet.
“This does not show consistency as the national government has not exercised the same decisiveness in other areas with similar dismal peace and order, as well as human rights records,” Atienza said.
What about the rest of the Philippines?
While drug-related killings in Davao City plateaued, the death toll continued to rise elsewhere in the Philippines. The Dahas Project, in its latest report, said that Marcos’ second year in office also “revealed more localized spikes in the number of killings in some provinces.”
Cebu has since surpassed Davao del Sur as the top province with the most killings. The National Capital Region and Negros Occidental are also catching up.
Rappler has requested interviews with provincial police offices of Cebu and Davao del Sur as of early July, but received no reply as of Thursday, August 15.
The continued killings place doubt on the sincerity of Marcos’ moves in relation to Davao City. The strategy that his administration followed in Davao City can certainly be replicated across the country, but the President is being “very calculated” because of his “many political considerations.”
“It can make things happen or make things stop but the problem is that as long as it’s not politically advantageous to anybody who’s in power, they’re not gonna do that,” Conde said.
“It’s just a question of really having the political will, of having the imagination and creativity to work in the current environment, but at the same time ensuring that the policies and actions of the government are rights respecting,” he added.
A nationwide crackdown on drug-related killings will get trickier to start in the coming months, especially as the country heads to the 2025 midterm elections.
Consistently exercising disciplinary function over LGUs with abusive police and local officials will risk alienating local officials, Atienza pointed out.
Philippine politics, after all, “are not driven by party programs and party discipline but by personalities, resources, and alliances” that can deliver votes to national candidates.
“This is unfortunate because it shows the weakness of the President and the national government,” she said. “In the process of exercising selective decisiveness to target only enemies or critics, the state of accountability, transparency, peace and order as well as human rights is sacrificed.” – Rappler.com
*Names have been changed for their protection