The killing fields

Be careful what you wish for. Voters mesmerized by the tough-talking Rodrigo Duterte were given this warning in the 2016 elections, but brushed it aside and gave him a stunning landslide win.

It’s unclear if lessons were learned from the six years during which Duterte carried out his campaign promise to kill, kill, kill.

Unable to fulfill the part about eliminating the drug menace in six months, he sustained his effort to deliver on his campaign promise during his six years in power.

By most accounts, he had hoped to apply nationwide the so-called “Davao model” of fighting the drug scourge, which his camp claims had worked effectively in his turf Davao City (Duterte critics disagree).

Even as blood flowed in the streets, mostly in low-income communities, survey after survey gave Duterte high approval ratings. He apparently regarded this as a blank check to carry out his crackdown against illegal drugs, using his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement.

His attitude was, you asked for it, you got it.

Sen. Bong Go was correct in pointing out that this tough stance on law enforcement enjoyed public support, including from lawmakers who always applauded Duterte’s pronouncements on the drug war. Today many of these lawmakers, Go sniffed, were falling all over themselves to investigate Duterte and his officials for the conduct of the war on drugs.

Duterte in fact stepped down from office still enjoying impressively high survey ratings, which he transferred to the UniTeam in 2022, with his daughter Inday Sara garnering even more votes as Vice President than standard bearer Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Frustration with the compromised, snail-paced judicial system and weak rule of law have made Filipinos open to short cuts to justice. Dirty Harry types have enjoyed strong voter support.

People realize the dire consequences of the end justifying the means only when the abuses inevitably engendered by Machiavellian methods hit home, or too close to home.

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In Duterte’s war on drugs, public opposition to the killing of drug suspects, nanlaban or not, began registering strongly in surveys only when even teenagers were shot dead, with the youngest fatality turned into a “mummy” – head wrapped in plastic and packing tape, wrists and ankles bound. Suddenly, those who were glad to see the troublemaking dopeheads in their neighborhoods eliminated began worrying that their own teenage sons might also end up dead.

The fears grew as rumors swirled that police were tasked to fill kill quotas, with cash rewards and promotions awaiting those who had the highest number of drug kills.

Although such rumors persisted almost from Day One of Oplan Tokhang and later, Double Barrel, it’s no less appalling to hear officials providing gruesome details confirming the worst stories.

It’s particularly ghastly that a woman seems so deeply involved in the atrocities. The accusations against Royina Garma, however, and her subsequent epiphany leading to her revelations about the alleged kill quota and reward system, bear weight because of her long rumored special relationship with Duterte.

Garma, who opted for early retirement from the Philippine National Police to accept her appointment as general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, is seen as a member of Duterte’s innermost circle – the one with involvement in his killing spree.

Duterte’s camp may be correct in pointing out that Garma, in talking about the quota and reward system, is diverting attention from the horrific accusations against her – that she and another former PNP colonel, Edilberto Leonardo, are the masterminds in the murders of PCSO board secretary Wesley Barayuga and three Chinese drug trafficking convicts at the Davao penal colony.

This, however, doesn’t minimize the weight of Garma’s testimony, given under oath.

What the government does with the horror stories now coming out of the quad comm hearings will test the commitment of the Marcos administration to respect human rights and uphold the rule of law.

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Along this line, President Marcos has one less weight on his shoulders. His breakup with his UniTeam running mate appears complete, after he said he “must have been deceived” by what he thought was his friendship with Vice President Sara Duterte.

Their non-friendship is one less worry for him, if he intends to see a genuine probe of the abuses in the drug war, either in the Philippines or through the International Criminal Court. Garma and Leonardo have reportedly been long included among the persons under ICC investigation.

If BBM opts for a domestic probe, state prosecutors will have to pursue a case not just for multiple murder but for crimes against humanity, for which the country has a law: Republic Act 9851.

A domestic probe, no matter how credible, will always invite accusations of political persecution as the Marcos-Romualdez feud with the Dutertes percolates.

The probe will also have to move faster than the usual glacial pace of the criminal justice system, because there is still the possibility that the next administration could be led by another Duterte, or else sympathetic to the clan.

Alongside a domestic probe conducted with deliberate speed, BBM can allow a passive role for the Philippine government in the ICC probe, by not actively blocking its efforts to obtain information or testimonies from the country.

The ICC is reportedly nearly finished with its investigation, and arrest warrants are expected to be served within the year – most likely with Interpol assistance – on the key players led by Duterte.

Last year, BBM said the return of the Philippines to the ICC was “under study.” There’s still no final word on this.

If he wants to rehabilitate his dictator father’s image as a gross violator of human rights, leading the Philippines back to the ICC would go a long way.

Ensuring that the country will never again turn into killing fields could become BBM’s enduring legacy. That would be a truly dramatic reversal for the Marcos name.