The Philippine government is conducting a judicious review of the 5,655 anti-illegal drug operations where deaths occurred to help tighten existing state mechanisms, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
(PCOO / MANILA BULLETIN)
“This review mechanism will not only reinforce accountability on the drug campaign, it will tighten the web on existing mechanisms to prevent cases of impunity, including the inter-agency committee on the extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave violations to life, liberty and security of persons,” Guevarra said during his video report before the UNHRC.
Guevarra told the UNHRC that a Philippine inter-agency panel has been conducting the judicious review of the anti-illegal drug operations where deaths and will “present a report on its work by the end of November of this year.”
“I chair this mechanism and have worked closely with the CHR (Commission on Human Rights) and a university-based think tank to improve its institutional capabilities,” said Guevarra.
The secretary noted that CHR has been involved in the mechanism as “an independent monitoring body.”
“The Philippine National Police is obliged by its internal mechanism to conduct motu proprio investigations whether or not there are complainants on all law enforcement operations that result in deaths, and take action on this basis,” Guevarra added.
“This panel, external to the Philippine National Police, re-evaluates these cases and examines the propriety of reinvestigating them or filing appropriate charges against erring law enforcement officers,” he added.
Guevarra said the panel also “intends to engage affected families, provide them with legal options, and assistance in criminal prosecution of law enforcers who have overstepped legal bounds in their operations.”
Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete told reporters the inter-agency panel is under the RealNumbers Project of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO). It started reviewing the cases in February.
“Since then, we have ironed out logistical and other requirements for it to function, including the sharing of data and case files by, among others, PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) and PNP,” Perete said.
Aside from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the PCOO, the other members of the inter-agency panel include the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Presidential Management Staff (PMS), the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the PDEA, and the PNP.