Drug-war killings review found 'too little, too late'.

Yes, there are valid reasons why human rights advocates, lawyers' groups and critics of the Duterte administration's "war on drugs" found inadequate after a long wait the Department of Justice's release last Wednesday of an information table (matrix) on the review of 52 death cases resulting from police operations. The matrix consists of docket numbers, names of suspects(victims), dates and places of the incidents and the DOH-led review panel's observations on each case.

In many cases, the panel found policemen couldn't support their claims that the victims fired guns first, and pointed out that the victims were shot multiple times. Among the lawyers' groups, the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) noted that the "paltry number [of cases] and the inordinate lateness" of the review indicated that the DOJ was only "going through the motions" of reviewing the cases previously investigated by the PNP Internal Affairs Service.

The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) observed that the review "fails to provide a comprehensive and meaningful assessment of the real extent of the violations of human rights committed during the implementation of the 'war on drugs'." It doesn't provide "useful information to assist in making the offenders accountable," FLAG added, "nor does it provide comfort or solace to the families of the victims.

" A legal group called Ideals, which has been aiding drug-war victims since 2016, remarked that the review was a "last-ditch effort to hide the fact that our [justice] system is unwilling and unable to sufficiently investigate and prosecute crimes against humanity." On its part, the Human Rights Watch senior researcher pointed out that the review of 52 cases out of thousands killed in the drug war "hardly qualifies as compliance" with the DOJ's promise to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in June 2020. To better appreciate these critical comments and the context of the DOJ panel review, let's look back to what happened before.

On June 30, 2020, United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet formally presented to the UNHRC's 44th session her office's comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines. "Very serious" was how she described the findings on human rights violations, topped by extrajudicial killings (EJKs), both in the Duterte government's "war on drugs" and counterinsurgency campaign.

Note: the Duterte government did not allow High Commissioner Bachelet nor her...