August 16, 2017 at 8:24pm, 17 year-old Kian Loyd Delos Santos was last seen being dragged by two men. Four witnesses later said that he was given a gun and told to run. Delos Santos was later found dead with three gunshot wounds to the back of the head. This incident comes after a drug operations conducted in Caloocan City, northeast of Manila.
Delos Santos’ case is among 82 people killed by Philippine police on the night of August 16, 2017 and is yet another brutal killing to add to the 7,000 victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Although the Philippines have seen positive economic growth in recent years, much of the Philippine population remains below the national poverty line. In southeast Asia, Philippines remains to struggle in dealing with the unemployment rate. Subsequent government leaders have failed in combating the widening gap between the rich and poor. In the outskirts of Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, for example are home to 4 million Filipinos who occupy disturbing living conditions with no access to structure housing settlements, clean water, food and basic sanitation. The growing crime rate in part is directly related to impoverish conditions and government corruptions, from local police to state senators. This in turn has create a country with little regard to the rule of law.
In June of 2016 Rodrigo Duterte became the 16th President of The Republic of the Philippines. Much of his appeal has been contributed from his controversial and promising campaign to target and exterminate drug pushers and drug users within six months. This approach was particularly popular by his vast support of the Filipino population who was tired of the excessive crimes, increased poverty and political corruption. Less than a year into President’s Duterte’s term reports began to circulate of killings happening nationwide. The victims were alleged drug users and drug distributors and were mostly male, unemployed and were from poor rural areas. These reports garnered the attention of the world Human Rights groups and thus began a movement to challenge the ‘war on drugs’ campaign and extrajudicial killings.
Unfortunately there is no statutes and no laws passed by Philippine Congress defining extrajudicial killings, however being part of an international community, The Philippines is subject to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. The universal understanding of extrajudicial killings is ‘Killing by governmental forces or state agents outside of the legal or judicial process.’
