MANILA, Philippines – The House of Representatives quad committee wants a reinvestigation into the cases of thousands of people killed by the police in the name of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

“Mahirap namang bitawan na ‘yong mga pamilya ng mga biktima. (It’s hard to let down the drug war victims’ families). So we have to hang on and try to move forward and try to somehow, ‘yong (the) reinvestigation, the best thing we can do,” quad committee co-chairperson and Santa Rosa Representative Dan Fernandez said during the mega-panel’s inaugural hearing for 2025 on Tuesday, January 21.

Seconding Fernandez’s suggestion, quad committee co-chairperson and Abang-Lingkod representative Joseph Stephen Paduano said the mega-panel may submit a partial report again in relation to its probe in the drug war, and suggest to the executive department the creation of a body that will focus on the review and reinvestigation of the said cases.

The House of Representatives led by Speaker Martin Romualdez, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s cousin, initiated a probe into Duterte’s drug war last year, shortly after the fallout between the president and the Dutertes. Later on, the probe was merged with other inquiries, giving birth to the quad committee that now looks into drug war killings, Chinese syndicates, and the Philippine offshore gaming operators.

The mega-panel’s probe has already unveiled testimonies that directly implicate Duterte to the drug war, like former police colonel Royina Garma’s affidavits confirming the war’s reward system and the former president’s Davao Death Squad.

In its progress report made public in December, the quad committee recommended the filing of complaint for crimes against humanity against Duterte and his allies over the killing of nearly 30,000 people during the drug war.

The nearly 7,000 cases were the recorded number of victims killed in police operations, while the 30,000 tally was the combined number of those killed by cops and vigilantes, based on the count of human rights groups. In the previous hearings, lawmakers would take note of these recording killings, but this was the first time that the body specifically mentioned a reinvestigation into the unresolved cases.

Duterte cops go unpunished

The number of convicted cops, relative to the number of people killed in drug war operations was what prompted the mega-panel’s refocus on the drug war killings. Human rights lawyer and International Criminal Court assistant to counsel Kristina Conti said during the Tuesday’s hearing that there were only eight cops jailed for drug war killings.

As of 2024, there are only four known convictions in the drug war. The first conviction was in 2018 for the killing of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos in Caloocan City in 2017, while the second and third guilty verdicts were in 2022 and 2023 for the same cop in the killing of teenagers Carl Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman.

Last year, the fourth and possibly the “last conviction” came after a Caloocan City court found four cops guilty in the killing of father and son Gabriel and Luis Bonifacio in 2016. Lawyers from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers said this could be the last guilty verdict for them as they have no more drug war cases pending before courts.

In other killings, lawyers either had a hard time building the case due to limited access to evidence, or the complaints were dismissed in the prosecutor level.

The government made little effort to probe the killings. Out of thousands who perished in the anti-drug campaign, the PNP only opened 52 cases to the Department of Justice for investigation. A Rappler investigation revealed that of the 52 cases, 32 had been closed by authorities without the filing of a criminal complaint.

There has only been one conviction (Arnaiz, De Guzman case), and even one case of acquittal. – Rappler.com