?YOU can die any time? is the apt title of the 103-page report of Human Rights Watch on the orgy of killings that have claimed the lives of 814 victims in Davao City from August 1998 to as recently as February 2009 at the hands of death squads.
The report released yesterday by the New York-based organization at a press conference by HRW executive director Kenneth Roth details the involvement of police and local government officials in the targeted killings of alleged drug dealers and petty criminals, and decries the lack of any effort by the authorities to investigate the killings and bring those responsible to justice.
Without mincing words, Roth laid down the extra-legal vigilante-style squarely on the shoulders of the authorities. ?The hundreds of targeted killings in Davao City in recent years are clearly no random events but the result of planned hits by a ?death squad? that involves police officers and local officials,? Roth said. ?The police consistently failed to bring the perpetrators to justice, while the local government cheers from the sidelines.?
The report was more scathing than that of the Commission on Human Rights at its first-ever public hearing on death squads in Davao City on March 30 and 31. The report vividly describes the anatomy of the death squad operations, sharply contradicting blatant denials by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of the existence of the Davao Death Squad (DSS).
The report of Human Rights Watch?s investigation of 28 cases of apparently targeted killings was based on more than 50 interviews with victims? families, witnesses, journalists, human rights campaigners, and government officials in Davao City, General Santos City and Digos City.
The data make gruesome reading. The number of victims of targeted killings in Davao City has steadily increased in the past decade, from two reported cases in 1998 to 98 in 2003, and 124 in 2008. In 2009, 33 targeted killings were reported in January alone.
The report found a pattern to the killings. ?The assailants usually arrived in twos or threes on a motorcycle without a license plate; they wear baseball caps and button shirts on jackets, apparently to conceal their weapons, and they shoot or stab their victim without warning, often in broad daylight with little regard for those witnessing the crime.?
Barangay officials, police officers and sometimes city government officials frequently warned people, who subsequently became victims of these killings that their names were on a list of people to be killed unless they stopped engaging in criminal activities. In other cases, the victims were killed immediately after their release from police custody or prison.
According to Davao Death Squad ?insiders,? most members ?are either former communist New People?s Army insurgents or young men who themselves were death squad targets and who joined the group to avoid being killed. Their handlers, usually policemen or former policemen, provided them with training, weapons and ammunition, motorcycles, and information about the targets.?
According to the report, insiders said ?that handlers obtain information about their targets from the police or barangay officials, who compile lists of those engaged in criminal activities.? The insiders explained ?that police stations are notified in advance to ensure that police officers are slow to respond to such killings... Police arrive at the scene long after the assailants leave, even if the police station is minutes away. Police often fail to collect obvious evidence such as spent bullet casings, or to question witnesses or suspects, but instead pressure the families of victims to identify the killer. ?
?As quickly as the assassins arrive to kill their targets, they ride off ? but almost always before the police appear,? said Roth. ?And the police rarely seem interested in collecting evidence to hold perpetrators accountable.?
The report took pains to point out that Duterte ?has made numerous statements attempting to justify the killing of suspected criminals, believing that such killings have a deterrent effect on crime and have made the city a safer place. But according to statistics provided by the Philippine National Police, the number of annual crime incidents has increased some 219 percent in the last decade, while the city?s population rose only by 29 percent. An increasing number of death squad killings appear to have made crime rates worse in Davao.?
Roth recalled that in February 2009, Duterte told reporters, ?If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am mayor, you are target of assassination.?
The Arroyo administration has largely ignored the targeted killings, and in fact, in 2003, Duterte became President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s consultant on peace and order. ?The inaction of the national institutions responsible for accountability, namely the Department of Justice, the Philippine National Police, the Ombudsman?s Office, and until recently, the Commission on Human Rights, have apparently led those carrying out the killings to conclude that they will suffer no penalty for their actions,? the report said.
Human Rights Watch said the Philippine government and local authorities in Davao City should urgently take measures to stop the killings and hold the perpetrators accountable. It said, ?The Arroyo government should send a clear message to local officials and the police that the killings of petty criminals, drug users, and street children will not be tolerated, and bring justice to the victims? families.?
