FDS Insight Magazine Aug - Oct 2022

39 Blood and violence of the drug campaign Under the Duterte administration, more than 6,000 people were killed in police operations to crack down on illegal drugs, according to government data. Human rights groups say that the death toll was much higher, estimating the figure to be around 20,000. The brazen violence of the anti-drug campaign has been condemned by international organizations and Western governments. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said at the end of June that he would seek to reopen an investigation into the killings and other suspected rights abuses under the Duterte administration. The probe had been suspended in November at Manila’s request, with Philippine officials citing their own investigations into the killings. ‘Lack of accountability is a crucial problem’ ‘The ICC will continue its processes on this investigation regardless of the domestic context. Continuing the probe is about the only thing we have to push for accountability because other mechanisms have so far failed,’ Carlos Conde, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, told DW. Even while the ICC considers reopening its investigation, accountability is another matter. Marcos Jr. has said that he is not in favour of an ICC investigation. ‘Under this new government, the lack of accountability will be as crucial a problem as the continuation of the drug war violence,’ Conde added. Last month, Wilkins Villanueva, head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) urged Marcos Jr. to intensify the drug campaign. ‘Marcos Jr. will be under pressure to continue the drug war. Under whatever agreement he had with the Dutertes, he will protect the former president and his lieutenants from accountability,’ Conde underlined. Meanwhile, many of those who died in the drug war were buried in temporary graves whose five-year lease has now expired. Flavie Villanueva, a priest who started a program that provides grieving families with food assistance and counselling resources, has now started Project Arise to deal with that fact. Villanueva’s program exhumes bodies from their temporary graves, has them cremated and the ashes placed in a more permanent location. ‘Under Marcos Jr. and Duterte, these things will continue: culture of impunity, mistrust of authority, and poverty, because those being killed are mostly the family breadwinners. And with this, the deep-seated wounds of those who have lost their loved ones,’ Villanueva told DW. Remembering and grieving While justice for the victims may remain elusive under the current administration, rights activists say that