Kate Lamb - Thousands dead: the Philippine president, the death squad allegations and a brutal drugs war
NB: Shameless criminality has been let loose in the Philippines from the apex of the state. That secret and not-so-secret criminal cohorts function with impunity from the heart of many state structures is an open scandal, but many ruling classes make some kind of effort to hide their criminal behaviour with masks of civility and law. At times this breaks down completely, as in India during state-enabled communal massacres and hate-speeches, when police look the other way and after them, when courts choose to delay cases or ignore crucial evidence.
Leaving aside totalitarian polities and ideocratic states (discussing which would detract from the intent of this note) never has the so-called free world - the world purporting to uphold democratic values and constitutions - seen such a blatant avowal of terror and lawlessness from the senior-most elected executive authority in the state. A man who orders outright murder, including of children & pregnant women (see below) in case they act as witnesses later, is a man of Hitlerite qualities. Those who uphold basic human values and respect for life should (regardless of their political inclinations) oppose this upsurge of tyranny in the Philippines in every way possible. So help us God: DS
“Throw them in the
ocean or the quarry. Make it clean. Make sure there are no traces of the
bodies.”
The words are
shocking. That they allegedly came from the man who is now president of the
Philippines makes them explosive. It is claimed that Rodrigo Duterte gave
the orders to his first death squad in Davao, in the southern island of
Mindanao, in 1989 when he was ‘“mayor Rudy”.
Arturo Lascanas, a
retired police officer, made the accusations of Duterte’s campaign of
extrajudicial killings under
oath to the country’s senate last month, and he repeats them to the Observer with
an air of uneasy calm, with the resolve of a man who has carried these secrets
for decades. “We were the first hit squad during his reign,” claims Lascanas,
from the safe house in Manila where he is hiding from his own president.
Inside the house, with
curtains drawn and the military men guarding the door, there is a sense the
ordeal could turn ugly at any moment, that Lascanas expects to die for what he
has divulged.
After more than 20
years as mayor of Davao, Duterte won the presidential election last May with
promises to rid
the country of drugs and crime, to kill every drug dealer and user, and to
feed their corpses to the fish in Manila Bay.
On the back of his
claims of having established law and order in Davao, Duterte, 72, was seen as a
strong man, a saviour and an antidote to the “narco” state the Philippines had
apparently spiralled into. But behind the bluster
the statistics don’t lie: Davao still has the highest murder rate in the
country and the second highest number of rapes, according to national police
data for 2010-15. Yet the drug threat has become so deeply entrenched in the
Philippine psyche that the normalisation of the mass murder of traffickers and
dealers appears to be setting in.
The death toll of the
president’s drug war in the nine months since he took office at the end of June
has topped more than 2,500 killings by police and 3,600 by vigilantes. Agencies
including Amnesty quote a total figure of more than 7,000 dead. But many
Filipinos gloss over the killings and Duterte’s poll ratings remain high. “The streets are much
safer now,” many in the capital will tell you. “Here in the Philippines we need
a ruler with an iron fist.”
Some, in confidence,
express a sense of hopelessness over the deaths and the way Filipinos, even
their own family members, have suddenly become so bloodthirsty. But for those
who don’t live in or have any connection to the poor areas – where overwhelming
numbers of the killings have occurred – it is easy enough to adopt a begrudging
acceptance. After a while, the dead are just a growing number. Allegations of a Davao
death squad (DDS) have for years been dismissed. Last September a confessed
former hitman, Edgar
Matobato, testified to the senate, implicating Duterte and his son in the
killings of alleged drug traffickers, dealers and criminals but there has never
been indisputable evidence, or a paper trail, much less any purported leaders
willing to testify.
That is until Lascanas
came along. The 56-year-old retired officer initially went on the record to
deny the existence of the DDS but after undergoing kidney surgery (allegedly
paid for by Duterte) in 2015, he says he experienced a spiritual awakening. He
started consulting the nuns of Davao and then decided, regardless of the
consequences, to tell the story of his president’s deeds.
“The only way out of
this evil environment is to tell the truth,” Lascanas tells the Observer from
his sparsely furnished room. “I want to make sure there will be no more
condemnation for my generations to come, for what I did – what we did – for my
children and their children, and their children.” Last month he recanted
earlier testimony, telling the Philippine senate in a six-hour televised
hearing that the DDS was indeed real – formed at the behest of mayor Duterte
with the express purpose of carrying out state-sanctioned murder. The retired officer
says he lied at first because he feared for his life, and the safety of his
family, but later realised he could not take his “evil side” to the grave.
Lascanas, who claims
he was a former DDS leader and personally killed “about 200 people”, told the
senate the squad was formed under the guise of an anti-crime unit within the
Davao police. The team was, he says, given the task of eliminating hardened
criminals, and later political opponents and journalists critical of Duterte’s
rule. The DDS, he alleged, regularly took direct orders from mayor Duterte
about who to kill and how to dispose of the bodies. Lascanas claims those
shocking words – “Throw them in the ocean or in the quarry. Bury them. Make
sure there are no traces of the bodies” – were spoken by Duterte at one of
dozens of alleged meetings with the DDS. The police hit squad was paid based on
the “value” of the targets, he says.
For the most part, in
his more than three decades of service, Lascanas admits, he was “blindly loyal”
to the cause, and saw his work as a “noble” form of public service. “We were
risking our lives for the welfare of the majority of the people,” he says. “I
felt that I was serving the country for the greater good.” Lascanas joined the
Davao police when he was 21. Eight years later, he says, he became one of the
youngest members of the DDS. He is the kind of person who remembers details –
when asked how long he has been a policeman he answered precisely: “For 34
years and eight months.”
He tells of one
particular incident that has given him nightmares for years: in 1996 Lascanas
and his team were ordered to kill an alleged criminal, his pregnant wife and
his four-year-old son, who were all in the same vehicle at the time. 'I
attempted to rescue the four-year-old boy,' claims Lascanas, grimacing. 'But
according to our team leader since the boy had seen our faces, he could
recognise
us in years from now and identify us.'
It was on the personal order of Duterte, he claims, that they disposed of the family. 'Mayor Rudy approved the recommendation of our task force commander, in front of us. To erase - meaning to kill - everyone,' he says with uneasy calm. 'That was his specific order. That he’s OK [with it] provided it would be clean.'.. read more:
It was on the personal order of Duterte, he claims, that they disposed of the family. 'Mayor Rudy approved the recommendation of our task force commander, in front of us. To erase - meaning to kill - everyone,' he says with uneasy calm. 'That was his specific order. That he’s OK [with it] provided it would be clean.'.. read more:
