EDITORIAL - What about the other victims?

Eight years since Kian Lloyd delos Santos was shot dead during an anti-narcotics operation in Caloocan, the Supreme Court has affirmed the murder conviction and life terms of the three policemen involved in the killing.

Former policemen Arnel Oares, Jeremias Pereda and Jerwin Cruz were also ordered by the SC to jointly pay P275,000 in damages to their victim’s family.

At least justice has been rendered in the case of Delos Santos, with the SC unlikely to reverse its ruling in case of a motion for reconsideration.

Relatives of two other teenagers executed at the height of the brutal war on drugs carried out during the Duterte administration are still waiting for a final ruling on the cases.

And relatives of thousands of other people shot dead by police ostensibly for fighting back or nanlaban while being arrested in the course of the drug war have yet to see the perpetrators identified.

The country passed Republic Act  9851 in December 2009 – the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity. But RA 9851 has never been applied in connection with Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown, compelling the International Criminal Court or ICC to step in.

Delos Santos, just 17 years old, was a senior high school student who reportedly hoped to be accepted into the Philippine National Police Academy. He was not on any drug watchlist, but he was shot dead on Aug. 16, 2017, during a period when police were suspected to be receiving certain forms of incentives and rewards for killing drug suspects.

Within the next days, two other teenagers were killed by police: former University of the Philippines-Diliman student Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 19, and his companion, 14-year-old Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman. Both were last seen alive on Aug. 17 in their community in Cainta, Rizal.

Ten days later, the body of Arnaiz was found with five gunshot wounds along C-3 Road in Caloocan. On Sept. 5, the body of De Guzman was found floating in a creek in Gapan, Nueva Ecija with 28 stab wounds. He was hogtied and his head was wrapped in plastic and bound with packing tape.

The execution of the teenagers stirred outrage in a nation that had mostly looked the other way when Rodrigo Duterte began delivering on his election campaign promise of killing criminal elements. The executions also firmed up the resolve of the ICC to conduct a probe on possible crimes against humanity committed in the drug war.

Seeing the punishment imposed on Delos Santos’ killers at least should make police officers think twice before again pursuing a take-no-prisoners approach to criminality.