Former GRP president Rodrigo Duterte incriminated himself and admitted his direct role and policy in the mass murder of thousands under his so-called war on drugs during his bloody and repressive regime. Human rights groups have estimated the number of those killed to have reached 30,000, mostly poor and small-time drug users.

The war criminal Duterte admitted his responsibility several times during hearings conducted by the Marcos Jr.-controlled Philippine Congress last week. Under oath, he said he told police officers to provoke suspects to fight back to justify their being killed, and that he rewarded police officers for killing the suspects. He refused to admit publicly, however, that the funds for his mass murder spree came from the millions of his confidential funds.

Early on, Duterte was also implicated by a police colonel close to him of implementing a reward system for police officers based on the number of drug suspects they killed. This reward system they named the “Davao model” is a system of payment which rewarded police forces and hitmen for successful killings, funded planned operations, and refunded operational expenses. Duterte implemented the same system when he was mayor of Davao City in southern Philippines, during which time hundreds have also been murdered, which included children. 

Several relatives of those killed by Duterte's drug war who were present during the hearings expressed strong frustration and anger that the hearings would not pursue the justice they want – to arrest and put the remorseless Duterte, his lieutenants and cohorts behind bars, as a result of his admissions. The hearings only exposed to them the futility of pursuing genuine justice under the present system. 

Human rights organizations, progressive politicians and individuals have joined voices in calling for the immediate prosecution of the war criminal Duterte. They also called for an investigation of politically-motivated extrajudicial killings under the former president. 

Human rights alliance Karapatan in a statement called on Marcos Jr. “to take the decisive step of working and coordinating with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to have him investigated, arrested, prosecuted and tried for the killings of thousands of drug suspects when he was Davao City mayor and in his first years as the country’s president”.

Karapatan also called for Duterte’s henchmen to be arrested, prosecuted and tried for following Duterte in exchange for money.

“Duterte and his henchmen cannot be tried in Philippine courts where they can exert influence and pressure and frustrate the ends of justice. Neither should they be held in Philippine prisons where they will likely enjoy VIP treatment, given their money and influence and the corruption prevalent in our penal system,” Karapatan emphasized.

“There is no reason for Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to continue feeling bound by Duterte’s self-serving decision to withdraw from the ICC. That is, unless he believes that staying out of the ICC’s ambit will also shield him from being investigated and prosecuted in the future for the mounting war crimes being perpetrated by his military forces in the course of the counter-insurgency war,” Karapatan concluded. 

The NDFP's People's Democratic Government has received many complaints filed by relatives of drug war and political killings.#