EDITORIAL - Blindly following orders

Throughout his presidency, Rodrigo Duterte promised law enforcers that in case of trouble, he would be the only one to go to jail or suffer for the bloody crackdown that he ordered on illegal drugs.

In a video taken on the jet that took him to The Hague for his date with the International Criminal Court, he repeated this message, saying he had told police and military personnel to do their job and he would answer for them: “Trabaho kayo, ako ang mananagot.”

In truth, however, he won’t be alone in being held accountable for the thousands who were killed on mere suspicion or on trumped-up charges of involvement in the illegal drug trade. His first Philippine National Police chief, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, and the second one, Oscar Albayalde, are also expected to be arrested for ICC trial in the Netherlands.

And former top PNP officials aren’t the only ones expected to be prosecuted or suffer the consequences of their actions.

Duterte is now being held without bail and preparing to face trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for possible crimes against humanity in the conduct of his war on drugs when he was president and before that when he was mayor of Davao City. Lawyers familiar with ICC rules have said the formal trial could take years.

But even low-ranking PNP members who participated in the campaign code-named Oplan Tokhang and Double Barrel are feeling the consequences.

In January this year, Josue Limmong Ahuday was denied permanent residency by the Canadian government for his role, even if relatively brief and minor, in Tokhang.

Ahuday was a member of the mobile patrol assigned at the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Manila Police District’s Jose Abad Santos station. From December 2016 to February 2017, he participated in Tokhang operations during which MPD members knocked on doors to ferret out drug users and dealers.

He left the PNP in June 2021 following his marriage and moved to Canada on a spousal open work permit. His wife included him as a dependent spouse in her application for permanent residency. But his application was rejected in May 2023 by the Canadian government on the grounds of violating human or international rights.

Ahuday was deemed to be “complicit in acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population” when he was a PNP officer carrying out the war on drugs. That describes so many other PNP members who participated in the drug war. Ahuday’s fate – along with those who are being pursued by the ICC – should serve as a lesson to those who blindly follow wrongful orders.